via @calebwsimpson
On the more quality end of the spectrum, there are men on the street asking, “How much do you pay for rent in New York City” and then, “Can I see your apartment?” Where they then lead the cameraman on a Cribz-style apartment tour, optimized for TikTok. Caleb Simpson is the king of these types of videos, which are clearly staged because they offer a look into the interiors of many ready-for-screen apartments–from vintage, remodeled townhouses in Brooklyn to tiny studios full of Pokémon plushies. The man-on-the-street part is only the hook to get you watching an apartment tour, giving it an off-the-cuff, authentic feel, though it’s ultimately incidental that they found them “in the wild.”
On the worse end of the spectrum of these videos, there are bros in college towns asking inebriated partygoers, “How many bodies is too many?” or “Rate this person on a scale of 1 to 10.” This is the kind of video that birthed the “Hawk Tuah” girl. They deal in debased questions and hope that the BAC levels of their guests will do the talking. The interviewees are sloppy, share inflammatory opinions, succumbing to the bait-y questions they’re given. These videos are the spiritual successors to the Girls Gone Wild type of party interview of the early 2000s. They prey on the vulnerable moments of young people, egged on by questions that speak to our lowest selves. The more outrageous the hot take, the more views it will get.
via @quincybytheway
Even though this type of video is worse than its counterparts, the problem with both of these types of videos is the sheer quantity of them. It feels like every third swipe reveals one of these types of videos. And it’s not hard to see why. They are easy to produce–all you need is a cheap microphone, a host, and someone to hold the camera. They are repeatable because you can ask the same question to 30 different people and get 30 different clips out of it. And they are ripe for engagement with the inherent tension in asking a stranger a question. So the viewer is immediately hooked. The result is an avalanche of the same kind of content, which is bad for a few reasons:
First, the quality of the content will inevitably spawn imitation. For every Caleb Simpson, hundreds of more amateur interviewers crop up, who lack preparation and end up accosting strangers. They fail to realize the staged nature of their predecessors and find that the only other way to drum up engagement is by asking controversial questions. The lack of production value doesn't just mean a worse video, it means worse interactions.
These videos also erode an agreed-upon social fabric. They may claim to bring us together by breaking the barrier of strangerhood, but they exploit more than they enlighten. They operate on the very real sentiment that we should all be asking each other more questions. We should get to know our neighbors, our peers, and the other people who populate the places we exist. But man-on-the-street videos don’t foster connection between strangers, they capitalize on it. The moment you introduce a camera into an interaction, especially around folks who aren’t used to appearing on camera, it stops being genuine. These interactions are engineered to beget the most engagement online, not to foster the most in-person connections.
Journalists have been exercising their right to engineer social interactions for engagement since the dawn of print media. These videos are the natural progression of that lineage. Interviewers have been hoping their subjects will say something stupid for as long as there have been interviews. Something different happens, though, when swarms of untrained individuals descend on Washington Square Park every day, turning a public space into a breeding ground for content creation. Plus, most of these interviewers are categorized as pranksters, not journalists—and more pranksters is the last thing we need as a society.
That being said, man-on-the-street interviewers have given us incredible moments over the years. Billy Eichner, a pioneer of the genre with his show Billy on the Street, has created more memes and clips than it makes sense. Watching him ask, “For a dollar, name a woman?” to a startled young woman on the street and her failing to come up with one single name is utterly priceless. But we’ve reached critical mass. It’s time we start innovating. Plus, we’re getting tired of being stopped on the street. Like we said, we’re late for work.