A Guy Took A Creepshot Of A Woman In Woolies, And Now The Internet Is Cheering Him On
Taking pictures of women without their consent isn't "romantic".
If there’s one thing men on the internet know, besides literally everything, it’s how to do romance. When it comes to winning a woman’s heart, there’s nothing like taking a picture of someone you fancy without their knowledge or consent and posting it on social media for your mates to slobber over, amirite fellas? Amirite? My completely normal and definitely-not-severely-maladjusted buds over at ‘Hotties of Melbourne Uni‘ know what’s up!
A friendly reminder that that’s literally how Facebook got started.
No one, apparently, knows that golden rule better than supermarket giant Woolworths, which had a mighty interesting response when one of its customers posted a photo of a random woman on their Facebook page a couple of nights ago.
“My friend [was] buying fresh produce to make butter chicken when he glanced over at the girl of his dreams,” the post reads, along with a photo of the unsuspecting woman. “Girl buying mushrooms if you read this, we will be in this section every night at 7:38pm until we meet again”.
As decisions go, pledging to camp out in the vegetable aisle of the local supermarket every night in the hope that a woman you spied on there once will be charmed by your low-key stalking is up there with voting for the Australian Democrats in 2016 and buying season flight tickets for the Hindenburg. Unfortunately, not only were the two men in question as good as their word, they were egged on throughout by Woolworths itself, prompting the post to go viral. This saga has been going on since Monday, with thousands of people tuning in for each new update every night.
Inexplicably, though, some humourless individuals took exception to packs of thousands on thousands of dudes passing around an unsolicited photo of a woman like a flock of seagulls fighting over a chip. The story’s since been picked up by Channel 9, among others, and backlash against the pair’s (and Woolworths’) actions is growing.
Just upskirted someone in the deli section of Woolies but didn’t have the courage to find out anything about her personality ?, HELP ME❤️HER
— Jess McGuire (@jessmcguire) April 13, 2016
(10 bucks he is a Nice Guy™ who wants to shoot all the Bad Boys who’ve broken our hearts but hasn’t got the guts to say hi at Woolies.) — Sunili (@sunili) April 13, 2016
In case you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, it’s worth noting that we haven’t heard a thing from the woman in the original picture. Maybe she has no idea she’s at the centre of a huge internet manhunt. Maybe she’s flattered, and only didn’t go back to the Woolies because she had other stuff to do. Or maybe she’s a bit weirded out, possibly even upset, that some random guy thought he could snap a photo of her, post it on Facebook and act pissy when she didn’t act the way he expected her to.
We don’t know, because no one asked her — and that’s the kicker. Even if you’re a guy who means well, who would never intentionally hurt or demean anyone, the person on the other end of something like this has no way of knowing that. That woman in the photo doesn’t know whether that guy is a genuinely nice, good-hearted (if slightly socially awkward) dude, or if he’s the sort of person who cuts women’s hair on buses, like someone did to a woman in Sydney last night. or the sort of guy who chants songs that glorify rape, like last week at UNSW.
On college campuses, in comedy clubs, in state Parliaments, at music festivals, at the cricket, in bars, in the music industry, women in every conceivable facet of society are saying in no uncertain terms that this kind of behaviour makes them feel scared, threatened and unsafe. What’s it going to take for men to put their pride and hurt feelings aside, stop being keyboard warriors for five seconds, and listen to them?