The director of a viral YouTube video, which showed a woman being harassed on the streets of New York, has admitted that a lot of white men in the video were edited out.
The video titled "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman", has already received more than 14 million views since it was first uploaded on 28 October.
Rob Bliss, who filmed his girlfriend Shoshana Roberts walking through New York enduring catcalls and uninvited comments from men – who appeared to be predominantly black or Latino in the video – took to Reddit to answer questions after the video started getting more hits.
The director, who teamed up with anti-harassment organisation Hollaback! For the stunt, admitted that a "fair amount of white guys" who had made similar unwarranted comments at the woman were edited out from the final clip because their comments were in passing or noise pollution made them unclear or inaudible.
"We got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing, or off camera. So their scenes were a lot shorter, but the numbers themselves are relatively even," he said
The director of the video was answering to a remark made by a Reddit user, Murphyslol who said that almost all of the men on the video were black and asked if any white or Asian men harassed Shoshana.
"As the video says at the end, it was upwards of 100+ harassments, so obviously not everything was shown, otherwise we'd have a video that's too long for internet attention spans. But really it was across the board; just about everyone said/did something while we filmed," he said.
After the statement, Bliss has been accused of misrepresenting racial diversity and has racked up heated responses.
A tweet from Dr Welsana Asrat, a psychiatrist in Harlem said: "Rob Bliss' biased catcalling video serves to support his ongoing gentrification campaign."
Another user called Adam said: "Rob Bliss intentionally edited out the white men from that video to demonize PoC. He's a professional gentrification proponent. It's his MO."
Another person named Automia said in a tweet: "So this white guy, Rob Bliss, records a woman getting street harassment from loads of men, then cuts out most of the s*** from white guys...
"Basically Rob Bliss is a rich white guy with a vested interest in portraying poor black men as the sole perpetrator of street harassment."
