The viral video of a woman getting more than 100 catcalls just by walking on the streets of New York City has been replicated in New Zealand, and the result couldn’t be more different.

In late October, anti-harassment organisation Hollaback released a video of a woman in nondescript jeans and shirt walking for 10 hours through New York City. The volunteer, named Shoshana B. Roberts, said it was common for her to receive harassment on the streets.

“I’m harassed when I smile and I’m harassed when I don’t. I’m harassed by white men, black men, Latino men,” she said. “Not a day goes by when I don’t experience this.”

The video was filmed with a GoPro camera hidden in the back of the director Rob Bliss’ shirt. The director kept a distance as he walked in front of Roberts. A week after the video was uploaded on YouTube, it has received over 32 million views and launched countless debates and blogs from all over the world, most particularly in the U.S. where the video was taken.

The New Zealand Herald decided to test a similar experiment in Auckland. The result between the NYC and the Auckland video is strikingly different. In the NZ Herald video, 26-year-old model and yoga instructor Nicola Simpson walked through the streets of Auckland’s CBD for five hours on Friday. While Roberts received over a hundred catcalls from men all off background, Simpson was largely ignored.

Although there were a few men who did double-takes to check her out, none were as aggressive and confronting as the men Roberts encountered. There were two men who approached her. The first one turned around to follow her but only to ask if she was Italian and say that she looked nice. He later apologised for stopping her. The second man simply asked for directions.

“It was nice, it was a change from New York. People were actually quite polite,” Simpson said, referring to her experience in the U.S. city, where she lived for five years. “I don’t feel uncomfortable at all.”

She added, “It was extreme [in New York]. I hate it; I don’t want or like the attention at all. It’s not a compliment.”

Auckland

New York City