Thursday, January 29, 2009

Sharking, Actually Assaulting

The latest cute name for disgusting behavior is sharking--where a man runs up to a women or girl in a public and pulls down off some of her clothing while another man films it. I would say this is assault, plain and simple--humiliation of women and girls for amusement--a message that you are not safe just walking down the street. The description of this as a "sport" is egregious. This is different from "pantsing" which is done between friends as a joke (like the infamous wedgie in reverse).

If you have any spare time please run a search and flag these videos as inappropriate. Like gang tagging, if material doesn't stay up long the motivation to produce it is undermined. It could also be flagged or voted down on sites like Digg. Feel free to leave some comments and contact the advertisers on sites that won't withdraw the material. If they don't care about women being safe on public streets they might care when their income stream is threatened. Look for advertisers that are large brands with active PR.

I am all for freedom of expression, but not when it comes to glorifying assault and sickos taking 'up shirt' filming to the next level. Some of the videos may be fake but I am not giving any benefit fo the doubt. If I end up looking like a humorless bitch I can live with that.

examples:
Break, Whoomp, Online Video DB.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, they let these videos on Youtube. That is truly disgusting. It shows how much sexism still exists in society.

Anonymous said...

I learned about sharking from watching a video from a Japanese hidden camera television show. From what I understand, the fad started there and has since spread like Michelle Duggar's legs. (ZING!)

I know cross-culture value judgments are frowned upon, but when it comes to depravity and degradation of women, Japan is hard to top.

Now if we want to go into full-on assault territory, we could discuss the English fad of happy slapping. But let's not.

von Klick said...

I agree with you-- it is assault, pure and simple.