18-year-old says she was secretly filmed in Ontario mall for viral TikTok video deemed as anti-woman
Kendra Seguin | CBC News | Posted: March 21, 2025 9:00 AM | Last Updated: 11 hours ago
In short videos put online, unsuspecting women asked about relationship status
An 18-year-old is speaking out after she says she was secretly filmed in a London, Ont., shopping mall, and the exchange was posted to the social media feeds of a man whose viral videos seemingly celebrate men rejecting women.
The woman said she was eating a pretzel on a bench and was alone when she was approached by two men who asked if she had a boyfriend. She said she told them she did, to which one of the men said, "'That's surprising,'" then quickly walked away.
A few hours later, she said, she saw a video of their eight-second interaction on social media. She said her initial reaction was shock, in part because she didn't realize she was being filmed.
"I was on the phone with my mom telling her what happened when my boyfriend sent it to me. His friends saw it on TikTok and sent it to him," the woman said. "I was sent the video for probably a week straight after that."
CBC News has agreed not to identify her to protect her from further online scrutiny.
More than five million people watched this particular video on TikTok. Thousands left comments, including many supporting the alleged effort of "humbling these 304s," slang for promiscuous women.
Other comments referred to the poster as "king" and thanked him for his efforts.
"I was frustrated and off-put by all the comments," the 18-year-old said. "So many people were egging it on and saying, 'Yeah, keep humbling these girls,' or 'This is great, keep up the good work.'"
She said she wanted to speak about what happened to her because she worries young men may be influenced by what they see online and they'll see what happened to her as acceptable behaviour.
"It's disturbing knowing the number of boys who are learning this mentality, especially with the new generation being so online."
Dozens of videos posted to the same account showing other young women in the mall being taken by surprise when they're asked about their relationship status. They're mocked when they respond.
The account holder, @fiiivestar, has not responded to multiple requests for comment from CBC News, and the account has since been removed.
It enables this form of misogyny that I think is really bubbling out there in society. - Kaitlynn Mendes, Western University, Canada Research Chair in Inequality and Gender
Women being approached by men in public and being made to feel uncomfortable is not new, said Kaitlynn Mendes, a sociology associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Inequality and Gender at Western University.
But when the exchange is filmed, with the potential of ending up online, Mendes said, women might feel limited in how they can respond.
"You can see how deeply uncomfortable many of the women look, and I think there's definitely socialization in terms of what women can say," she said, adding some women will fear being met with violence or verbal harassment if they push back.
Mendes pointed to the comments, calling them "nasty," and said they would not make anyone feel good.
"It enables this form of misogyny that I think is really bubbling out there in society. And so it potentially gives it this really negative outlet directed at women."
Legal arguments about posting online
As unwelcome as it may be, filming people in public is not necessarily illegal, said Toronto lawyer Maanit Zemel.
She said the women in these videos could possibly sue for invasion of privacy in civil court, but the case would be challenging to prove.
"She doesn't necessarily have a reasonable expectation of privacy because she's in the mall," Zemel said. "But because she doesn't have the knowledge that she's being recorded, there's a possibility to argue that there may be some form of invasion of privacy."
Zemel said the women could also try suing for being publicized and placed in false light, which is when true information is published in a way that makes the subject look bad, embarrassed or other than they truly are.
"In this case, it would be that this person is, arguably, falsely not dateable," she said, adding the comments on the video could help prove the case.
"If it's being posted and people are making comments that are humiliating or embarrassing for her, and talking about her physical attributes ... it creates a situation where people are, in combination, placing her in a false light."
Other women who saw the videos said they sparked conversations about going out alone, even to a shopping mall.
"I think a lot of girls are already self-conscious, so if someone comes up to you [like the creator of the video], that's just reinforcing their insecurities," Caitlin Rashotte, a student at Western University, told CBC News.