Kiwis Do Not Call Cats

Interesting to note that the first known attempt, above, to reproduce the experiment in the New York cat-calling video has proven a failure.

The explanation advanced by the New Zealand press, naturally enough, is that Aucklanders are simply more decorous and polite than New Yorkers. This may well be so. Almost all of the men in the original video who were so forward and cruel as to wish the passing woman a nice day were apparently either black or Hispanic; there may be a relative shortage of blacks and Hispanics in New Zealand's North Island. 

I once lived in a black neighbourhood in the US, and enjoyed the general tendency to greet strangers in the street. Old women would pass me and ask “how you percolating, boy?” I enjoyed living in a Portuguese neighbourhood in Toronto for the same reason. Some women, for whatever reason, perhaps an innate hatred or fear of men, may not like it so much. Anglo neighbourhoods tend to be a bit more emotionally isolationist, in my experience, and New Zealand may be one big Anglo neighbourhood, in comparison to New York.

But I note something else, which I suspect is crucial. This New Zealand women, although I think she is objectively more attractive than the New York walker, is not employing the latter's so-called “neutral” expression—the faint scowl and the refusal of eye contact. She is interacting normally with her environment.

You want people to try and get your attention, I'd say that New York zombie walk is a good way to do it.

I really do hope others try to repeat the experiment.