WATCH: YouTube Channel Accused of Profiting Off Street Harassment

A 22-year-old woman from Pennsylvania has started a petition to take down a YouTube channel that teaches men how to “pick up women”. The Simple Pickup channel regularly posts videos featuring three young men who roam the streets making crude comments at women in an attempt to impress them. Writer and social media volunteer for the Stop Street Harassment campaign, Julie Mastrine, decided to put an end to what she calls “harassment” and “sexualisation” of women.

“The men in the videos groped women on the street, made sexualised comments to them, and in some cases even assaulted them, all under the guise of ‘helping guys like you get laid’,” said the activist. After sending out a tweet to the Stop Street Harassment’s followers asking them to report the YouTube channel, she realised that there was an issue reporting the channel due to YouTube’s classification of offensive videos – with Simple Pickup’s videos falling under none of the given categories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW5AuACvPG0

Once Julie realised these men were also profiting off these videos via an LLC, she took to Change.org to create a formal petition against the channel, urging YouTube to remove it. The petition has now received over 30,000 signatures from people all over the world who are uncomfortable with what they have seen in Simple Pickup’s videos. Change.org’s corporate headquarters have also picked up on the importance of Julie’s petition and promoted it online and sent out media blasts, which has brought the petition a lot of attention.

“There’s a running mainstream narrative that street harassment is a compliment or an acceptable way for men to show they’re interested in women,” said Julie. “However, street harassment is degrading, scary, and can sometimes escalate to violence.”

Many women who signed the petition agreed that the men take “getting a date” too far. It is clear from the videos that many of the women being approached are uncomfortable with the way they are being spoken to, with many often rejecting the advances and making it difficult for women to watch.

“[The channel] is actually just a cloak for invading women’s personal space and violating their bodily autonomy in public.”

Anne Franklin from Bloomington, Minnesota signed Julie’s petition on Change.org and expressed her views clearly on the website:

“Sexual harassment is an outrage under any circumstances. But to publicise and promote it is simply unbelievable. It makes me feel that I am not safe in a public place.”

Others who signed it also expressed their views on the Change.org about how wrong it is to harass women in the name of “entertainment”. However, while the petition has received a lot of positive reactions, not everyone agrees with Julie’s classification of the channel as a promotion of sexual harassment and some men have taken to the website to express how helpful the channel was with helping them get a date.

“Some people on Twitter have accused me of censorship, which I think constitutes a straw man argument,” said Julie. “I’m not an advocate of censorship, however, if a private company is attempting to profit off of assault and intimidation, it’s certainly within our rights to ask YouTube to remove their platform.”

This is not the first time Simple Pickup has been involved in a controversy like this. They recently raised a lot of questions about the way in which they raised money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation: promising to donate $20 to the charity every time a woman let them “motorboat” her for the camera. The Breast Cancer Research Foundation eventually gave back their donation after finding out about the methods used to raise the money.

“We live in a culture that likes seeing women sexualised and exploited,” said Julie. “Many people are not educated on these issues and thus are unable to identify sexism when they see it. From pop stars to porn, sexist behaviour is not just accepted in our society, it’s often rewarded with fame, money and power.”

Despite the petition being so successful, Julie is yet to receive a response from YouTube or the creators of Simple Pickup and the channel continues to broadcast videos to millions of subscribers. Julie points out that Simple Pickup take the time out to blur out or pixilate the faces of the girls in their videos, signalling that on some level they know that what they are doing is a violation.

“I think that many of the viewers of Simple Pickup are the type who have internalized that they’re entitled to a woman’s body,” explained Julie, when asked why she thinks so many people are fans of the channel. “That street harassment is harmless fun, an effective way to show a girl you’re interested. It’s not.”

She went on to talk about the growing culture of sexual harassment, explaining how when starting out at the Stop Street Harassment campaign a year ago, she would struggle to find content about the issue to share on their social media pages. Today, she is unable to keep up with all the tweets, articles and blog posts that talk about the issue.

You can find out more about the Stop Street Harassment campaign by visiting their website and following them on twitter. Additionally, if you find Simple Pickup’s videos as offensive as many other women out there do, sign Julie’s petition and help her to take down a form of street harassment that the world needs to see less of.