Aspiring actress Shoshana Roberts silently walked the streets of New York City for 10 hours, and endured numerous catcalls and other harassing statements by men who she passed along the way. She and videographer Rob Bliss captured every moment on video and cut the disturbing footage down to a nearly 2-minute video that went viral within 24 hours.
The harassment continues for Roberts and the anti-harassment organization Hollaback! that sponsored the video, according to The Wall Street Journal. Both have received about 10 death and rape threats, which Roberts and the Brooklyn-based group have passed along to the New York City police.
"We've had so many people reach out saying, 'Thank God, this is exactly what my day looks like,' or people who were shocked, saying, 'I had no idea that this is what women face. I'm so grateful,'" Emily May, the co-founder and executive director of Hollaback!, told The Wall Street Journal.
The filmmaker, Bliss, originally approached the anti-harassment organization Hollaback! with the idea for the video in August. His girlfriend's own stories of harassment on her walks through the city inspired the idea for Bliss.
"I felt like no one had really clearly demonstrated what street harassment looks like," Bliss said. "No one had shown the world what it looks and feels like to a person."
Bliss and Roberts recorded over 10 hours of footage on a GoPro camera hidden inside a gym bag. Roberts also held two microphones as she walked through Midtown Manhattan, Wall Street, SoHo, the Brooklyn Bridge area and Harlem. Hollaback! had identified these neighborhoods as areas with the highest reports of catcalls and harassment since May started keeping track in 2010.
The video shows multiple men calling out to Roberts, but she never responded to any of them. They would yell things such as "Hey beautiful" or "How you doing?" Sometimes they would just stress the word, "Damn." One man even walked alongside Roberts for five minutes, while another kept incessantly asking her to talk to him and exchange phone numbers.
"I was worried something would happen to her, someone would grab at her," Bliss said. "It was something I was concerned about on this shoot and it definitely changed me and my opinion."
Hollaback! has received 7,000 cases of street harassment in New York City since 2010. Reports have increased by 42 percent in the last year. May also asked Reddit and YouTube to take down the threatening comments on the video.
