It is understandable to get excited upon seeing your favourite content creators and influencers while out and about. However, it is always important to remember your boundaries and to respect people’s personal spaces!
Unable to accept how frequently he gets touched WITHOUT his consent, a local content creator is now speaking up.
Noicnico took to his Instagram page to share the multiple uncomfortable experiences he had in just 1 week, where strangers had touched him without his consent.
Here are his experiences:
While he was at a popular anime, comic and game convention.
“I was working at AniManGaki when a guy came up to me without saying ‘hello’ and just wrapped his arms around me while I was filming, and told me, ‘I know you from TikTok, (I) love your content’,”
“His face was really close to mine and I could feel his breath,” Noicnico shared.
While at the student lounge of the university campus he’s studying at
“I was on campus and I had just finished class. I went to the student lounge, I recognised a familiar face and I was going to say ‘hi’. This guy is my fan, whom I have interacted with before but we are not friends. I don’t know why he suddenly rubbed my belly. I was stunned by it but didn’t react much. I was uncomfortable but I just brushed it off.”
Noicnico then saw the same familiar face a couple of days after the initial belly-rubbing incident, and the person attempted to rub his belly again.
“I quickly slapped his hand away and said, ‘Don’t touch me’. He didn’t get the memo and must have thought it was just a friendly argument, and walked off to class. This made me angry and more uncomfortable for the week,” he added.
While interviewing students for his freelance job on campus
This image is for illustration purposes only.
“The way I interview people is that I roast them in a friendly way,”
“I interviewed this girl who I just met and the shoot went well at first. While halfway through the interview, I roasted her. Suddenly, without warning, she pinched my nipple and it hurt. I had to pretend and fake my reaction because, at that moment, I wasn’t thinking straight. I was focused on filming for my job and I didn’t react as how I should have,” he explained.
After the shoot was over, Noicnico told his videographer how uncomfortable he felt upon being touched, to which the videographer shared that they knew he was faking his reaction during the interview.
Noicnico was initially contemplating on whether he should make a video to address all the non-consensual touching or to just let it go when he was dealt his final straw.
While talking to a friend during a campus flea market.
“The guy that rubbed my belly touched me again by surprise. He pets my belly while I was chatting with my friend. He caught me off guard and he vanished,”
“That was the last straw. I posted the video but got a minimal response, which made me feel alone and unheard.”
Due to the minimal response not just from the public but also from his own close friends, Noicnico then took the video down thinking he might have been too sensitive or overreacting.
But after posting an Instastory about his feelings on this matter, many people reached out to comfort him. This prompted Noicnico to once again share his experiences to spread awareness and urge people to be a little bit more self-aware of respecting boundaries.
“Many men don’t share their experiences due to fear of being called weak or un-masculine. If our reaction towards women getting sexually assaulted is shocking, we should have the same reaction when it happens to a man. No one deserves to be unheard,” he said.
In the end, he also shared that it shouldn’t be his responsibility to teach people about boundaries in real-time.
“Some of you may say, why post a video or a statement about this without letting the second party know about what they did? To answer that, no, I don’t want to have a mature conversation with the party who touched me. I DON’T KNOW THEM. It’s not my responsibility to teach them boundaries in public,”
“Just because I’m friendly towards you does not mean I know you. I’m giving you the respect and kindness as a human being. Why can’t you do the same for me? I should not have to make a statement about basic human decency. But, here we are,” he added.
What do you think of Noicnico’s uncomfortable experiences with people touching him without his consent? Do feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.
