Videoing violent incidents rather than helping out is increasingly common. The bystander effect is defined as the phenomenon in which people are less likely to help a victim if other people are present. But why do some people want to video the incident as well?
For instance, a Spanish woman was recently attacked on the tube in East London near Hackney for speaking Spanish with her friends. But instead of helping her out, people were busy filming the assault.
On another occasion a police officer was filmed after being attacked by the suspect he was chasing. The Telegraph headline read: Police fury at ‘disgusting’ bystanders who filmed injured officer knocked off his bike instead of helping him.
These headlines are not uncommon, so my question is: why do people feel the need to film? Is it because they want the video to go viral, and if so, is that narcissism? Ot is it citzen-journalism?
I think that a lot of them do it to get more followers on Instagram or Twitter, because they are more interested in getting ‘likes’ than actually being liked. That might also account for why some people go as far as recording their crimes to post on social media, such as the men accused of live streaming a rape in Sweden.
Then there’s the famous case of Logan Paul, who thought it would be beneficial for him to post a video of a corpse hanging from a tree in Japan. He hoped the video would gain him more fame, and in some aspect it did. But what he did was ignorant and insensitive, and many people have still not forgiven him, including me.
I think the bystander effect is the result of self-seeking narcissism that makes people too self-absorbed to register other people’s pain. And if they are are standing by and watching, then they might as well take a video as well, right?
