Social Experiments

[Sugarlightly]

I really don't know if I'm being unreasonable here, but does anyone else just not get the recent trend for "social experiments" online?

Bit of context: saw a video in which 2 girls berated and overweight man for being in McDonald's, ultimately another man came and dumped his drink ontop of one girls head. It transpires that all 4 people were actors.

I mean (firstly, how is this a social experiment) does anyone think this is weird and patronising? Why do people need to be socially experimented upon? Why do we need to record things in the hope that there are kind people to stick up for others?

I personally feel sceptical about all this. People say they are harmless but looking at comments on these videos, although most are positive, reveals a narrative which is not helpful ("I agree with them - he is too fat to be eating more McDonald's"; "Why is the the other person sticking up for the fat guy?"). Will it make someone think twice about helping someone being attacked because they may be filmed and ridiculed?

Like I say - I don't know if I'm personally affected by this particular video because I'm overweight as well, but is there similar feelings or do people think that we should have more instances of social experimentation to encourage acceptance?

I do find them interesting in a way but I'm always sceptical that the people being experimented on are not actors too. Like th domes where you get a bloke kicking the shit out of a woman and all of a sudden big super hero guy comes along to save her - who supposedly doesn't know he's being filmed and a big dramatic scene unfolds 🤔

I do agree also, that th Elmore of this that goes on, the more people will either

A) only help because they think they're being filmed
B) stay clear in case they're being filmed

These videos aren't really 'social experiments' since the people taking them aren't qualified professional researchers with the appropriate ethical boundaries and reporting procedures. It's just showing off in a particularly pretentious way that suggests they think they're vastly superior to the people being 'experimented' upon.

Any research which doesn't involve informed consent from the participants is an ethical minefield, as these people would know if they actually had any business doing such experiments.

/soapbox

I always assume its a marketing ploy by whichever product has pride of place in the vid, cynical witch that I am