Remote Control

I just watched Derren Brown and his programme called Remote Control.

The audience, who are wearing masks decide the fate of one man during an evening out with a couple of friends.  You see this guy sitting in a bar with his two friends and hidden cameras are positioned all over the bar.  His friends are in on this as are some actors.  This is a live show and the action is streamed into the show on a big screen.

With each nice option there is a nasty option.  On each occasion, the audience have to electronically cast their vote for either the nice option or the nasty option. On every occasion, the audience voted for the nasty option. Here are the things that happened to him:

Accused of pinching a girls backside and the boyfriend starts having a go at him.
The barman accuses this poor soul of not paying for his drinks
He gets drink thrown over him by partying girls
He is accused of stealing from a shop after they leave the bar
The police are called and he is cautioned.
He is carted away in a police van after they "view" CCTV footage
The show producer smashes up his TV in the guys flat after having a good snoop around
A work colleague phones him up and tells him he is being fired on Monday

Coming near to the end of the show, we are informed by Derren Brown that the police will make out they have an emergency call to go to and he will be let off with a caution.  They are to drop him off near his home.  The audience are then given a final choice for this poor guy:

£10,000 prize to be given to him (by the producer who is still in his flat) when he gets indoors or
Kidnapped by a group of thugs

They chose the kidnapping. 

We go over live to the street where the police are to drop this guy off.  We see him get out of the back of the police van.  The copper has a brief word with him.  The police drive off and a black van comes screeching round the corner.  5 or 6 big blokes get out and grab the guy.  He manages somehow to get away from them, he runs up the road and as he goes to run over the road, a car hits him and throws him onto the windscreen and then onto the ground..............

The live transmission goes dead. The audience are stunned into silence and they start, one by one, removing their masks to reveal their faces.  Some of the women are crying.  Derren Brown walks off the set.  Everyone is looking really worried.

Derren Brown comes back into the studio and informs the audience that in fact, they were the subject of this experiment and that the scene of the guy being dropped off by the police, the thugs and being run over by a car was all a set up.  He reminded the audience that at the beginning of the show he had said that for the next 50 minutes everything you see is real and not fake.  He then said that the show had been running for 53 minutes and therefore, this last bit didn't count.

He told the audience that their anonymity and size of group made them behave like an angry, nasty mob.

This was a really interesting experiment.  All along this poor guy was having a really bad night and the audience were revelling in his bad fortune created by their own hands.  As soon as the accident happened, there was remorse, sadness, concern.  This really was a bit of an eye opener for me and I was quite shocked that the audience could be so harsh to wish someone such a bad time.

Do you think that you would have voted for the nasty things had you been in the audience?

blue

I would like to think that I would stay true to myself and vote for the nice things to happen. I have always been a champion of the underdog... even if it is not the popular thing to do.

Very interesting story blue...

katt

It actually made me a bit angry that they kept picking the horrible option.  I definitely would have gone for the nice option each time.

The best bit was the look on their faces when Derren informed them that they were in fact the experiment and not the poor guy who had no clue what was going on around him.

I guess it will be on youtube soon and is definitely worth a look.

blue

I am thinking that there were some people in that group that chose the nice things to happen and they must have been really frustrated when the bad things people were the majority every time!

Them being the experiment, I would hope, made some of those mean people rethink there stinky attitudes!

katt

Most people won't choose the nice things, that was proven time and again unfortunately... If you give a human being some power over another human being chances are that the one in charge will try to cause pain to the subject.

The lowest result was at the end where 67% wanted him to be kidnapped. which is a staggering two thirds of the audience.  The rest of the time it was in the high 80s.

I guess this show has proved that too Johnny.

blue

Wow, just Wow that people could be so mean to someone they didn't know or care about...Sad state of affairs and I hope they learned a lesson....

Where can i see this program? time channel etc?

This show seems interesting. Sadly, human beings are a little bit morbid and like to see other people having it worse that them.

Thats terrible, shameful and embarrassing, i hope it serves as a lesson and helps people to really look at themselves, wanting others to suffer is a shame.. always know that someone.. SOMEONE is watching you, dirty deeds are never not seen, even IF alone your conscience will haunt you, it won't leave you in peace..if you do the right things in life the payout is in your golden years you can live guilt free, nothing that weighs on your shoulders, you'll be happy with peace of mind which is a very important thing to have..

Very powerful show Blue, Thanks for sharing that

Don't see the logic in it all. There is enough of it in the streets without provocking more of it on tv.

Ditto to that liquor!

Agreed.  It is quite sickening.

blue