Note about 2 missing the reactions in the video- I was presented with information that caused me to doubt the veracity of 2 of the 5 reactions in the video. These were reactions that were captured during a two week period while the device was at house 2 hours away from where I live. I put a feeler out for people willing to put a package on their porch and this person (who is a friend of a friend) volunteered to help.
To compensate them for their time and willingness to risk putting a package on their porch I offered financial compensation for any successful recoveries of the package. It appears (and I've since confirmed) in these two cases, the “thieves" were actually acquaintances of the person helping me. From the footage I received from the phones which intentionally only record at specific times, this wasn’t clear to me. I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59).
I’m really sorry about this. Ultimately, I am responsible for the content that goes on my channel and I should have done more here. I can vouch for that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house. Having said that, I know my credibly is sort of shot but I encourage you to look at the types of videos I’ve been making for the past 7 years. This is my first ever video with some kind of “prank" and like I mentioned in the video it’s pretty removed from my comfort zone and I should have done more.
I’m especially gutted because so much thought, time, money and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn’t just taint the entire effort as “fake". It genuinely works (like all the other things I’ve built on my channel) and we’ve made all the code and build info public. Again, I’m sorry for putting something up on my channel that was misleading. That is totally on me and I will take all necessary steps to make sure it won’t happen again.
The device had GPS tracker and it was used just few times, so chances of him NOT reviewing theif's route after each incident are zero. So he surely knew that the thief lived across the street.
My manager pointed out this to me shortly after the video blew up. As soon as he saw the video he suspected something was up but it took him less than half an hour after work that day to track down a shocking amount of information about the people involved and conclude it was a fake. He's absolutely sure it was fake top to bottom because Mark Rober would have to have seen and edit out evidence of fakery in the original video.
Impressive amounts of skill and creativity that went into something 100% trivial.
Impressive amounts of desire to do something meaningful, anything, no matter what, as long as it feels meaningful, that drives people to even begin digging into stuff like this.
I guess that means the leisure society is a lot closer than I thought?
Yeah, pretty shitty how the implication in the video is that Mark Rober designed the device (although he does briefly name-check the real creator), but no link in the description to the guy's channel.
Rober is going to have to do three times as much to recovery any credibility.
Well if you believe his explanation then they were still thieves, technically.
He offered to pay people who kept the package on their porch if the package was taken. They then asked their friends to take it so they would get paid.
Same guy made video "FLYING PHONE SCAM EXPOSED (so I built a REAL one)"[1], where he cried that someone made fake video and made money from amazon referrals.
At the same time, this fake glitter dude makes a lot of money from his fake video. Nice.
Funny. In the original thread there were quite a few people thoroughly convinced that there was no way this could possibly be staged because come on, why would he do that? After all, he is a famous dude and he worked for NASA! He would never stage a reaction video for views, how would that look?
That logic still holds if you believe his explanation. He didn't know the thieves were fake either. He didn't actually deceive anyone because he was as in the dark as we were.
I think the entertainment value of this video for me doesn’t rely on it being genuine. It’s creative, well engineered, and hilariously executed even if the responses are staged. I’m surprised, but it doesn’t ruin it for me.
Kind of like Top Gear or WWE. It's full of fake but we kind of implicitly get that. I think a bit of the issue here is that a lot of people (myself included) assumed there was no staging.
I watched the video and I was quite shocked at how many of the 'thieves' spoke to themselves when seemingly alone. I was wondering if people are that stupid in this 'thieving' class of suburban America.
We all speak to ourselves from time to time, it is as if we have a clutch going on between our brain and our mouths, in childhood we learn to use this clutch to think before we speak. But there will be occasions when we let this go, I could have an accident, e.g. stubbing my toe, in which case I might speak to myself with expletives without an audience for my words needing to be present.
If I had been tricked by this glitter package I might not disengage the 'clutch' due to being surprised and shocked. But I don't think I would have spoke to myself as the people in the video did.
So I was wondering if people were that stupid, but now I am thinking the entire video was fake.
The other aspect that concerned me in the video was the manner that he went off chasing the parcel in his car to the car park and what not. I would be quite apprehensive of confronting people regarding theft and yet I have had plenty of opportunities from working in retail to be able to do that. NASA engineer types generally don't have that street skill and I expected him to show the fear that is natural when confronting people for theft.
I don't think that we have heard the end of how well this video was stage managed and faked, I do not believe a single thief was legit. Why fake some of it and not all of it? Although YouTube this had a sponsor and was a full on TV production, and, in TV you don't have a soap opera where 'some of it is real', everything is scripted and staged or else it isn't. There was no evidence of multiple packages being made, so to create the monetizing ten minutes why risk it going wrong after one genuine thief takes the device and destroys it?
The get a friend of a friend to do it approach means the friends of friends know they have been pranked and aren't going to have law enforcement coming down on them. In America a real thief could pull a gun on our NASA engineer chap out of a fear of being sent back to jail for some parole violation. The reaction and blase way our NASA engineer chap went down hunting the perps didn't fit with how it all works.
I now wonder how he must feel about future Amazon orders, if I was him I would wonder how many of those will get routinely stolen from now on due to the unscientific rules of 'karma'.
I also don't think this really ruins his credibility as a YouTuber (or an engineer) at all. It's quite normal to act out and stage events for videos, especially in this case where the success of the video depended on recovering the device (for recording multiple takes, and because it just cost a lot of effort) and staying safe (since retaliation is a serious risk for people who fool porch pirates).
I'm not sure if he intended this to be the case, but I'll still be a subscriber.
I think people are a little confused about how much media out there is totally faked. Almost all of the "reality" programming is scripted, staged, and fake. A great deal of viral videos are staged or completely faked as well.
I couldn't care any less whether its genuine or not. I've always been baffled at the internet's obsession with outing "fake" content. It's like people think attention is sacrosanct and must ensure that any attention someone gets is "just" according to their personal criteria. It points to our pathological obsession with fame and status.
I recall several posts on this forum by users explicitly denying the possibility of it being fake, when the video was first posted.
I hope some of our fellow HN users who were so adamant will reflect on their comments, and it would be nice if they would comment on how they were thinking and feeling now.
'I doubt Mark would be staging things. He works for Nasa and worked on some big projects there and is a pretty smart guy. I can't see him being the kind of person looking to just make some viral fake video. But up to you to make that call if you want to think that. This is one case where I doubt it's staged.'
'Given who made the video, I'd give it about a 0% probably of being staged. That's not Mark's gig.'
'Well one, he's not a prank channel. He's a serious professional that even showed video of people stealing his package that started the whole idea. He then went as far as to machine parts, have a custom pcb manufactured etc. Then he contaminated cars and residences with glitter, yeah good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter.
I mean, the dude worked for JPL for almost a decade and has his work on Mars, he already gets tons of views and has a history of deep-diving projects. He's also a tv host. He's also a former TED speaker.
Guy has better things to do than stage videos for YouTube.'
If I'm not mistaken, this would be a good example of the halo effect.
I think this is the worst part. If you read through the YouTube comments, there is a tangible sense of rage toward "porch pirates", and you know people watching these videos will integrate the footage of the "thieves" into their own personal stereotype of who these thieves tend to be.
It's the first thing I thought: dude isn't going to wait for thieves and chance recovery for $1800 of phones, instead he's going to fake it like a reality show with friends / hired actors. He should've disclosed the fact because that would show integrity. He comes off like a smarmy guy that you can't trust, so it's not a huge suprise either.
The "I worked for NASA" shpeil is so sweaty when you find out that he didn't even build the device. (Someone in this thread posted the channel of the contracted builder.)
So what ? This does not make the work any less impressive. There is zero doubt in my mind that this was a genuine effort. Mark, if you're reading this: Awesome hack, keep them coming!
I'm still very surprised that any of this is true. This definitely seems like a booby-trap device situation to me, and I wouldn't risk leaving it out in front of my house.
Hopefully covered by the same laws that protect banks that use dye packs. Porch bandits are entering private property that is not theirs and not by invitation, then stealing private property.
Instead of pot smoking convictions, I'd rather see more prison time for porch bandits caught by dye pack-like bait packages.
There are obvious design decisions that make it safer than it could be; if the glitter were powered by an explosive device or had glue in it, it would obviously be more effective though less reusable.
I didn’t watch the video, but with a title like that, I thought it was fake. Not in a “haha I’m so smart, I knew it was fake!” way, but an “If this were real, he’d probably be using the video in court rather than on YouTube, besides everyone expects YouTube content to be staged” way.
One of the problems he originally called out were the local police being useless at dealing with property crimes. I believe this to be absolutely true. Based on experience.
What I'd like to know is what kind of person would volunteer to have their car or home covered in fine glitter that's impossible to remove. No idea how disgusting the fart gas is.
So even if Rober was paying people for recovery, I'd expect he'd have to pay them quite a bit more to voluntarily undergo the treatment of his boobytrap.
I commend him for doing this. People are up in arms about everything: this story plus numerous stories how glitter is bad for the environment. But he created a genuine video, complicated device, put time, effort, and best intentions without a hint of impropriety. People need to relax and stop looking for things to criticize in this case.
We have an ongoing biggest European journalism scandal in decades at Der Spiegel, and you barely hear about this in the media. Where are our priorities?
Yes I assumed some or all of it was fake, its really no big deal, who cares? He is on youtube trying to monetize his video, he probably wouldn't want to leave it to chance. I am just surprised he found people willing to glitter bomb their own cars! It's no different than most "reality" tv shows.
>Rober deleted about a minute and a half from his original YouTube video yesterday, and reuploaded it—something YouTube allows you to do without sacrificing the number of hits a user has accumulated
wait, what? you can edit YT videos without changing video ID? When did that happen?
[+] [-] nkurz|7 years ago|reply
--
Note about 2 missing the reactions in the video- I was presented with information that caused me to doubt the veracity of 2 of the 5 reactions in the video. These were reactions that were captured during a two week period while the device was at house 2 hours away from where I live. I put a feeler out for people willing to put a package on their porch and this person (who is a friend of a friend) volunteered to help.
To compensate them for their time and willingness to risk putting a package on their porch I offered financial compensation for any successful recoveries of the package. It appears (and I've since confirmed) in these two cases, the “thieves" were actually acquaintances of the person helping me. From the footage I received from the phones which intentionally only record at specific times, this wasn’t clear to me. I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59).
I’m really sorry about this. Ultimately, I am responsible for the content that goes on my channel and I should have done more here. I can vouch for that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house. Having said that, I know my credibly is sort of shot but I encourage you to look at the types of videos I’ve been making for the past 7 years. This is my first ever video with some kind of “prank" and like I mentioned in the video it’s pretty removed from my comfort zone and I should have done more.
I’m especially gutted because so much thought, time, money and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn’t just taint the entire effort as “fake". It genuinely works (like all the other things I’ve built on my channel) and we’ve made all the code and build info public. Again, I’m sorry for putting something up on my channel that was misleading. That is totally on me and I will take all necessary steps to make sure it won’t happen again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo
--
(I added the paragraph breaks for better readability; click on "See More" of the description for the original)
[+] [-] confiscate|7 years ago|reply
"people helping him put packages on their porches"
as well as their friends who pretended to "steal" the package.
Because the original goal was to uncover dishonest people, and so now you've actually found even more dishonest people, who were taped on video
[+] [-] reustle|7 years ago|reply
Does YouTube allow video edits now?
[+] [-] eps|7 years ago|reply
The device had GPS tracker and it was used just few times, so chances of him NOT reviewing theif's route after each incident are zero. So he surely knew that the thief lived across the street.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|7 years ago|reply
Also pretty impressed people have that much time on their hands (as I say posting some random comment into the ether).
[+] [-] aomix|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] megablast|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Florin_Andrei|7 years ago|reply
Impressive amounts of desire to do something meaningful, anything, no matter what, as long as it feels meaningful, that drives people to even begin digging into stuff like this.
I guess that means the leisure society is a lot closer than I thought?
[+] [-] inetknght|7 years ago|reply
Literally doxxing people is very scary.
[+] [-] Jerry2|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI
[+] [-] scoot|7 years ago|reply
Rober is going to have to do three times as much to recovery any credibility.
[+] [-] cf498|7 years ago|reply
Btw absolutely amazing project. Thanks for posting the link
[+] [-] jfktrey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucisferre|7 years ago|reply
He offered to pay people who kept the package on their porch if the package was taken. They then asked their friends to take it so they would get paid.
[+] [-] sccxy|7 years ago|reply
At the same time, this fake glitter dude makes a lot of money from his fake video. Nice.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEZCxxKp0hM
[+] [-] root_axis|7 years ago|reply
https://i.imgur.com/8tOcpZS.jpg
[+] [-] spuz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] etrautmann|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Waterluvian|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|7 years ago|reply
We all speak to ourselves from time to time, it is as if we have a clutch going on between our brain and our mouths, in childhood we learn to use this clutch to think before we speak. But there will be occasions when we let this go, I could have an accident, e.g. stubbing my toe, in which case I might speak to myself with expletives without an audience for my words needing to be present.
If I had been tricked by this glitter package I might not disengage the 'clutch' due to being surprised and shocked. But I don't think I would have spoke to myself as the people in the video did.
So I was wondering if people were that stupid, but now I am thinking the entire video was fake.
The other aspect that concerned me in the video was the manner that he went off chasing the parcel in his car to the car park and what not. I would be quite apprehensive of confronting people regarding theft and yet I have had plenty of opportunities from working in retail to be able to do that. NASA engineer types generally don't have that street skill and I expected him to show the fear that is natural when confronting people for theft.
I don't think that we have heard the end of how well this video was stage managed and faked, I do not believe a single thief was legit. Why fake some of it and not all of it? Although YouTube this had a sponsor and was a full on TV production, and, in TV you don't have a soap opera where 'some of it is real', everything is scripted and staged or else it isn't. There was no evidence of multiple packages being made, so to create the monetizing ten minutes why risk it going wrong after one genuine thief takes the device and destroys it?
The get a friend of a friend to do it approach means the friends of friends know they have been pranked and aren't going to have law enforcement coming down on them. In America a real thief could pull a gun on our NASA engineer chap out of a fear of being sent back to jail for some parole violation. The reaction and blase way our NASA engineer chap went down hunting the perps didn't fit with how it all works.
I now wonder how he must feel about future Amazon orders, if I was him I would wonder how many of those will get routinely stolen from now on due to the unscientific rules of 'karma'.
[+] [-] kawfey|7 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if he intended this to be the case, but I'll still be a subscriber.
[+] [-] jjeaff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] megablast|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkingemote|7 years ago|reply
I hope some of our fellow HN users who were so adamant will reflect on their comments, and it would be nice if they would comment on how they were thinking and feeling now.
[+] [-] decebalus1|7 years ago|reply
'I doubt Mark would be staging things. He works for Nasa and worked on some big projects there and is a pretty smart guy. I can't see him being the kind of person looking to just make some viral fake video. But up to you to make that call if you want to think that. This is one case where I doubt it's staged.'
'Given who made the video, I'd give it about a 0% probably of being staged. That's not Mark's gig.'
'Well one, he's not a prank channel. He's a serious professional that even showed video of people stealing his package that started the whole idea. He then went as far as to machine parts, have a custom pcb manufactured etc. Then he contaminated cars and residences with glitter, yeah good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter.
I mean, the dude worked for JPL for almost a decade and has his work on Mars, he already gets tons of views and has a history of deep-diving projects. He's also a tv host. He's also a former TED speaker.
Guy has better things to do than stage videos for YouTube.'
If I'm not mistaken, this would be a good example of the halo effect.
[+] [-] ggggtez|7 years ago|reply
The whole thing stinks.
[+] [-] dqpb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] utopcell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heyjudy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goldenkey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kayimbo|7 years ago|reply
fake af, also racist for getting black people to be the thief.
[+] [-] utopcell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yourapostasy|7 years ago|reply
Instead of pot smoking convictions, I'd rather see more prison time for porch bandits caught by dye pack-like bait packages.
[+] [-] smileysteve|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] recursive|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thosakwe|7 years ago|reply
Guess I was wrong...?
[+] [-] Karunamon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcast|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mcv|7 years ago|reply
So even if Rober was paying people for recovery, I'd expect he'd have to pay them quite a bit more to voluntarily undergo the treatment of his boobytrap.
[+] [-] mudil|7 years ago|reply
We have an ongoing biggest European journalism scandal in decades at Der Spiegel, and you barely hear about this in the media. Where are our priorities?
https://www.politico.eu/article/der-spiegels-first-class-fak...
https://spectator.us/der-spiegel-small-town/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-der-spiegel-says-repor...
[+] [-] seiferteric|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monksy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rasz|7 years ago|reply
wait, what? you can edit YT videos without changing video ID? When did that happen?
[+] [-] manigandham|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ourmandave|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dynjo|7 years ago|reply
Make more stuff NASA dude!!