Nowadays, everybody has a smartphone that can record video. If you’re in public, there’s a good chance that somebody has you on video, whether it’s intentional or not. That’s the life we live now; a life where public shaming is encouraged and people show off their possessions.
Our fascination with getting everything on video is both a good and bad thing. Bad as it promotes a narcissistic culture of showing off (just take a look at social media) but also good in that it provides a visual record that can be used in a multitude of ways.
One of them is of course, to deter and identify criminals for the police.
Without proof, I reckon the Bentley driver who hit the security guard would’ve taken much longer to apprehend. His timely arrest largely rests on the video records from dashboard cams which complemented the eyewitness accounts.
Recently however, it’s been shown that recording events to prove a point can also be a bad thing. Remember the woman who claimed a taxi driver was staring at her breasts when he wasn’t?
She tried to make it a huge thing online but because netizens aren’t idiots, her attention whoring was brought to a screeching halt when it was proven that she was full of crap.
Even more recently, there’s the case of a woman in the gym who claims a male gym user was oogling her. To prove her point, she secretly recorded the man while she worked out, and then even took to TikTok to post the video.
Turns out the guy was innocent.
He wasn’t looking at her at all. He was looking in her direction but was looking at a TV that was situated above her exercise station. From her point of view, the guy was staring at her. From his, he was just enjoying the antics of Mr Bean.
Now I endorse public shaming…IF it’s undisputedly clear the idiot on camera is in the wrong. People like Beow Tan and the whole racist lot from last year deserve being made a spectacle of. You don’t act like assholes and then expect no repercussions.
Posting a video in this case though…that’s wrong as hell.
First, there was no effort to reach out to the guy or the gym staff. That alone could’ve cleared any misunderstanding. If after reaching out the issue still persists, then yeah, go ahead and post the damn video.
You’ve tried to settle stuff, it didn’t work.
This time though the guy was innocent and got smeared for doing nothing. It’s great that the lady realized she was wrong and apologized, but there should be more discretion from all of us that not everything we record should be uploaded for public consumption.
You might be feeling self-righteous and think it’s well within your rights, but take some time and try to dissect if what you’re doing is right and whether there are other avenues to pursue before you hit the nuclear option of public shaming.