A video of a woman on a bike getting revenge on men cat calling her from a van has gone viral. It got millions of views on Facebook and YouTube. But it has now been revealed that the whole thing may have been staged.
The Telegraph UK reports:
A viral video of furious cyclist taking revenge on catcalling van driver ‘was staged’viral video of a female cyclist ‘taking revenge’ on a catcalling van driver was staged, an eyewitness has claimed.It shows a van driver verbally abusing the woman before she later gets revenge by ripping the motorist’s wing mirror off.The footage, filmed in Tottenham Court Road, central London, was captured on a moped rider’s helmet cam and racked up over 10 million views on Facebook in less than 24 hours.However, eyewitness Scott Deane told The Sun it was staged, he said: “They practiced the scene two of three times with the motorbike riding behind them.“You could see there was already damage to the wing mirror, it was loose … I couldn’t believed it when I saw the video online.”…The clip shows the cyclist hitting out at the van driver, who responds: “Woah, woah don’t be like that!”She responds: “Go away!”“Woah! That’s not very lady-like is it, ay? Oi, what charm school did you go to ay?” the van driver responds. He adds: “You wanna tell your mum and dad to get their f—–g money back.“Shut up you old dog … You on your period?”After the cyclist takes revenge, the man who filmed the footage tells them: “That’s exactly what you deserve, you scum!”
Here’s the video:
Joanna Williams of The Spectator sees parallels between this and another pro-feminism story that went viral:
The post-fact world suits feminism just fineThere seems to be a fear that condemning the video could result in women’s experiences of street harassment being called into question. But there’s really no need worry. Over recent years, as feminism has grown ever more distant from the reality of women’s lives, it has thrived off dubious stories of unsubstantiated personal experiences.Rolling Stone magazine’s now notorious 2014 article, ‘A Rape on Campus,’ told the tale of ‘Jackie’, a student at the University of Virginia, who claimed to have been gang raped at a fraternity party. Following widespread media attention, the closure of the fraternity and the suspension of the accused students, Jackie’s story unravelled. Rolling Stone retracted the story and issued an apology. A subsequent investigation blamed the journalistic failure on confirmation bias: because the incident supported the pre-existing narrative of universities being in the grip of a rape culture, too few questions were asked.When personal experience is not enough, dodgy statistics are brought in to shore up feminism’s pre-determined narrative of women as victims.
This is correct. Facts don’t matter when the narrative is at stake.
Featured image via YouTube.
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