The video exposing 10 hours of sexual harassment in New York in October has now had nearly 40m hits. But what was the impact on struggling actor Soshana Roberts? • October 2014: Woman receives rape threats after recording 10 hours of harassment

When Shoshana Roberts, a 24-year-old actor in New York, responded to a Craigslist ad earlier this year, she thought it would go the way these things always had.

“I’ve auditioned for a lot things that say, ‘Let’s make a viral video,’” she says. “I never think anything’s going to come of them. I just want footage so I can get another acting job.”

She cancelled her babysitting gig and spent a day walking the streets of New York, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, while a hidden camera recorded the extraordinary number of catcalls she received.

Rob Bliss, who runs a viral video marketing agency, created and directed the video in association with Hollaback, a New York-based group dedicated to ending street harassment. Posted to YouTube in October, 10 Hours of Walking in NYC As a Woman took fewer than 24 hours to reach 10m hits and has now been viewed more than 38m times. Copycat videos quickly followed – women walked in Delhi, Mumbai, Auckland. Funny or Die filmed a white man walking down the street. Princess Leia, a Muslim woman in hijab and a gay man made parodies in New York. But soon after it went viral, Roberts became the target of rape and death threats.

“I was scared out of my mind. I was really thrust into this. My goal was not to be the face of street harassment.”

Some of the behaviour in the video, like that of the man who walks close beside her, in silence, for five minutes, is profoundly unsettling. Yet plenty of the comments are innocuous – or even, polite (“Good morning”; “Have a nice evening”) – and the most prevalent criticism was on the racial politics inherent in the video. Hollaback released a statement: “We regret the unintended racial bias in the editing of the video that overrepresents men of colour.” That day of filming included a line of white businessmen, “who were like, and excuse my language: ‘I’d fuck the shit out of you.’”

“All I did,” she says, “was walk down the street with [Bliss] filming and he hasn’t been in contact with me so these aren’t even questions I can ask him. Rob got his ad revenue, Hollaback got their donations and I got people who wanted to slit my throat.” She’s laughing, but she admits: “I was very bitter.”

However, things may be looking up. Just last week, she says, Hollaback gave her $200 to cover expenses. Not much, but she pronounces them “wonderful” and says that she may be partnering with them on a pepper-spray product: “They want me on their advertisements, my picture on the back, some video testimonials of me using it.”

Thirty-eight million views is a powerful thing: it’s possible the video has made some men think twice about yelling at passing women. It hasn’t, however, changed much for Roberts. “I’m still babysitting so I can eat. Sitting here, talking with you, it’s still hard to believe it happened.” Nonetheless, she’s happy that it did: “I was just so exasperated thinking about it – I didn’t know what to do when it [street harassment] happened. I still don’t know what to do and it still happens.” Roberts says that she continues to receive catcalls from men of “every size, shape, colour, religion”.

“I’m just like everybody else, I want to make a difference in the world. I’m glad I was able to help.”