

The Disgusting Side Effect of the Social Media/Viral Video Age









Have you heard the story of Kitty Genovese ? She was a woman who was brutally stabbed to death nearby her New York apartment by a lunatic assailant. She was attacked by the man on three separate occasions during a time span of 35 minutes, all the while crying and screaming for help. Police reports declared that over 38 people heard or saw the attack—which occurred out in public—and no one intervened or even bothered to call police until AFTER the third attack when Kitty was already dead and the man fled the scene.





Do you know when this incident occurred? 1964. But judging from the subject matter, you would think it just happened the other day. In fact, if it did happen today, I can’t promise you that someone would’ve intervened and helped the poor woman out but I can wholeheartedly assure you without a doubt in my mind there would be live tweets, Facebook statuses and perhaps even footage of the murder captured on video and put up on YouTube or shock sites like World Star Hip Hop in order to go viral.





Witnesses would be quick to comment on the incident on Facebook and Twitter or have first-hand pics and videos for the world to see, yet refuse to do anything in the heat of the moment. No one would lift a finger unless it would be to grab their smartphones and let their friends know what they just saw, overlooking the fact that they could have stepped in and helped.



The Kitty Genovese murder shocked the entire Nation during a time when there was no social media and when the only things phones could do is call people. The incident led to numerous social psychological studies on the public indifference phenomenon where people stand around and do nothing during life-threatening injustices or emergency situations. Ironically this all-too-common reaction was coined as “Genovese Syndrome” but is more generically known as the Witnesses would be quick to comment on the incident on Facebook and Twitter or have first-hand pics and videos for the world to see, yet refuse to do anything in the heat of the moment. No one would lift a finger unless it would be to grab their smartphones and let their friends know what they just saw, overlooking the fact that they could have stepped in and helped.The Kitty Genovese murder shocked the entire Nation during a time when there was no social media and when the only things phones could do is call people. The incident led to numerous social psychological studies on the public indifference phenomenon where people stand around and do nothing during life-threatening injustices or emergency situations. Ironically this all-too-common reaction was coined as “Genovese Syndrome” but is more generically known as the bystander effect









You wouldn’t believe the amount of videos I have seen where the bystander effect is in action, which is made even worse when the bystander is just capturing the incident a few feet away when he or she could very easily step in. Videos of children being bullied, fights breaking out in public, vandalism, practical jokes, suicidal people jumping off buildings and a slew of other tragic events that people have become desensitized to, flood the internet and are viewed by millions. The television show “What Would You Do” pretty much documents and bases their entire show around the bystander effect in people with all of their simulated situations.



We are very quickly becoming a society of passive spectators. Rather than help our fellow man in distress, we take pictures and video of injustices. All of these tragic occurrences are completely preventable if the idiot with the cameraphone would put it in their pocket and do something.



What’s most disheartening are when those wannabe filmmakers are actually instigating or escalating a situation and yelling stuff like “This is going on Instagram!” or “WORLD STAR!”Heck, it’s even getting to a point where if a Good Samaritan does step in to help, they are ridiculed about it!



I saw a news story where a young teenaged girl broke up a fight—which had gone viral on the internet—between two students at a middle school. She was interviewed regarding her courageous efforts and she said that she was being teased at school by classmates and such for breaking up the fight! What were the abuses being hurled at her? They were sarcastically calling her a “hero” every time she passed by her locker or at the cafeteria.



Being teased and ridiculed for breaking up a fight? “Hero” is now some sort of a label to bring shame upon the girl because she refused to satiate the appetites of those wanting to see public violence? That is how degraded society has become.









According to some of the studies done on the bystander effect, two main reasons were cited as to why people don’t get involved in critical situations which require outside intervention:



Pluralistic ignorance

Collective inaction by a large group encourages individuals within the group to accept that nothing is seriously amiss ("nobody else thinks it's serious"), even when his gut tells him otherwise.

Diffusion of responsibility People have a tendency to avoid taking responsibility in critical situations, instead relying on another person to step up ("someone else is in charge" or "someone else is better able to deal with this"). The assumption that someone will do so becomes more pronounced in larger groups.