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Text warnings to subway gropers - Get Off, Brosef!



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"Did you just grope me? Shall we head to the police?" That's the message women are flashing on their cell phones with a popular program designed to ward off wandering hands in Japan's congested commuter trains.

I guess NYC isn't the only place where strangers on trains cop a feelio.

"Anti-Groping Appli" by games developer Takahashi was released in late 2005, but has only recently climbed up popularity rankings, reaching No. 7 in this week's top-10 cell phone applications list compiled by Web-based publisher Spicy Soft Corp.
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8 responses // Text warnings to subway gropers - Get Off, Brosef!

  • This sounds good...but on a crowded train, how am I to be sure that the groper is looking at my cell phone and not...somewhere else? Plus, are the women supposed to just sort of flash their phone around to everyone nearby in the hopes that the one who's doing it will be able to read it and stop? Seems like a bit of a stretch to me, and not that discrete, which was listed as one of the reasons for the program's popularity. Has anyone used this? Successful or silly?
    Tori
    • Tori
    • 11 months ago
  • I wonder if one can personalize the message - that would be much more entertaining, I think.
    mirimysweet
  • I have one of these, but I call it my fist. Goes well with some ridiculously loud and foul name-calling to call attention to it all.
    hollyg
  • And, um, is it just me or does it FRACKING SUCK that an application likes this even has to exist? That women are molested so often that a cell phone application had to be invented? That most women are so intimidated that they can't even speak up for themselves? That a startingly high number of men still find it perfectly ok to cop a feel anytime they want without fear of retribution? Not to mention that the language used on the phone message is all cute and polite instead of "f#@k you and get ready to be tased, motherf#@ker"?

    jesus.
    hollyg
  • http://current.com/items/76374722_hollaback
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    Hollaback
    I though this was a pretty good response to innapropriate and unwanted attention. Expose those creeps on the web.
    ac
    • ac
    • 11 months ago
  • What's the point of texting? You don't want to embarrass the groper by actually verbally accusing him in public? Who is going to start typing when being groped as opposed to turning to the person in question and yelling at them. Sheesh!
    SusanB
  • HollyG & SusanB-
    This is happening in Japan, which is not a confrontational society. In my five years of rush hour commuting in Kobe I've seen a lot of things, but the only confrontations were either alcohol induced or by foreigners. So although I, too, would give the gift of a fist if I witnessed such a thing, it's not an outlook shared by most Japanese, hence the text warnings. That said, as a man, it's hard to keep your balance in a moving sardine can with your hands in your pockets (and even that looks shady)... just my two yen.
    sgrubel
  • sgrubel...I know that Japan is quite different from the US and other places in the world, and that the culture is not as open to confrontation. But unfortunately that's often what some men are counting on in order to molest women in public. Not only in Japan, either. These men count on the woman to be too meek or embarassed to say or do anything...it's classic victimization.

    Of course there will the times when a lurching train is at fault (believe me; this from the girl who felt front-forward onto a seated man on BART a few months ago thanks to a last unexpected jolt) but it's just sad that that's not the case. But your point is well taken...
    hollyg

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