To hate 'social experiments'?

[ThomasRichard]

My FB feed is full of these so-called 'social experiments' involving a usually young person scaring or embarrassing random passers-by or wasting people's time with a fake profile/scenario, accompanied by drivel an explanation of how their rude, nasty or attention-seeking behaviour is illustrating a point vital for the progress of the human race.

It's beyond me to understand how people can genuinely be so self-obsessed and socially unaware that they think that embarrassing random people is some sort of worthy act.

AIBU?

Yanbu. They need a metaphoric slap.

Yanbu

I hate them too, I think they actually inspire people to ignore situations where they may feel they are being set up.

Can I add that I dislike 'pranks' as well?

It's just all attention seeking isn't it.

YANBU that sounds horrible and weird.

I can't believe the arseholes are smug enough to call it "social experiments".

Call them

I'd screen out these types of posts for starters. Can't see he point of them or of sharing

It's people like them who give genuine psychologists and sociologists a bad name. The difference being that theye don't follow research protocol or ethics.

Call them on their bad behaviour and tell them how it made you feel ( embarrassed, angry, intruded on etc ). They are being abusive by another name and could be reported as a public nuisance

If they are doing it through a uni or college you can report them for malpractice

Is this a new thing ? I've never heard of such. What kind of 'experiments' are they doing ?

I have never heard of this either.

Thank goodness I'm not on social media feeds I'd be all day. It's the scourge of society spreading that bad behaviour thru networks like it's "clever" or something

Oldraver here's an example that came up on a quick Google search: YouTube link that I don't recommend following. Two girls 'reverse catcalling' men walking past. In other words, sexually harassing passers-by who were filmed for their reactions and put up on the internet without their knowledge or consent.

What I hate about these is when men (always white men) mansplain the existence of women or gay people.

Eg - these two straight men pretended to be gay for a day. Watch what happens! Shocking! Or, this man dressed as a woman and was shocked at being harrassed in the street.

Can you not just listen to the people you say you're trying to understand in the first place? Or does every experience have to be validated by a man before it matters?

YANBU.

The ones I've seen mostly fall into one of two categories:

1. Non-member of discriminated-against social group poses as member of discriminated-against group, finds out members of discriminated-against group may actually be telling the truth about how much prejudice they face after all. Shock, horror, who could have predicted that? I don't think this is an entirely worthless idea, but the people doing it usually insist on talking about their findings in a way that suggests they're the first person ever to report that kind of behaviour.

1. Member of discriminated-against group poses as non-member of discriminated-against group online, arranges to meet someone for a date/interview, turns up, person finds out they were lying about who they were, they then use that person's annoyance at the "reveal" as "proof" of prejudice when it could easily be nothing more than annoyance at having been lied to.

There are the beginnings of good ideas for research there, but it should be done by people who at least understand what an experiment is and how to conduct one.

They're a waste of everyone's time, imo.

Most of these are naff or nasty.

Not so bothered about lighthearted ones though I.e seeing how people react to someone dressed as a teddy or something.

Wow, that sounds horrific (I'll be taking that advice and not clicking through to watch it). Yuck.

daisychain that annoys me too. These aren't experiments that are properly planned, rigorously checked for ethical considerations, carried out with willing participants and then fully documented, they're just people deciding to act like an idiot, see what happens and then put the video up on YouTube.

There are social experiments and then there are ... other social experiments. One are annoying excuse to do something really stupid and calling it an experiment, others are not so pointless and raise valid points. I wouldn't generalise and put all of them under the same hood.

I hoped for a long time that Donald Trump's candidacy was an elaborate social experiment. Alas, no. . .

I hate the ones that are designed to humiliate the marks. The entire "prank" genre isn't total shit, though. This one makes me laugh every time:

AmandaK which sort are you thinking of?

Galen that's funny

I know what you mean.
There seems to be a lot of "gold digger" pranks on my feed. Trying to show young women as money hungry and loose.

Another one is rich kids going to poor neighborhood's planting money somewhere and watching how many people will try to take it.

Or "stepping on Jordan's in the hood"
Or calling black people " my neighbor" and trying to make it sound like the n-word.

YANBU. I do sometimes miss the days before recording "stuff" to share online & seek attention was the norm.

Apologies for sounding like my late father here but "what's it all for?"

YANBU. 'Social experiments' and pranks seem to be made by the self obsessed who have no original thought and nothing new to say.

They are no better than people who spike your drink; they only think about what they want and dont think about the potential consequences.