A girl posted a video onto TikTok alleging that a man was “staring” at her in the gym, and netizens soon came to the defence of the man.
The TikTok user, Michelle Lim, had posted the video onto her TikTok account @michxlim on 19 January, showing the man in a white T-shirt allegedly “staring” at her.
She captioned her video “filmed to confirm my suspicion because he kept staring at my direction”.
Lim then included the hashtag #gymcreeps in her video, and added the caption “Exercise: 10 sets of staring at girls in the gym”.
She then purportedly referred to the man touching his nose in the video by adding a line “remember to santise before using machine guys,” in her video.
The girl then added “watch how he slowly checks out the girl” in her video, showing the man pacing around the gym and stopping for a short while to “look at her direction”.
Man was actually watching TV behind her
A TikTok user by the name of @dontanyhowrecord, posted a video showing a television right above the gym equipment where Lim had likely placed her camera to record the man.
Lim then turned off the comments on all of her videos and posted a statement to explain and apologize to the man.
Here is her statement:
“Hi, my name’s Michelle and I go by my social handle: @michxlim. You probably have seen the video where I have filmed and uploaded a particular gym user who happened to be at the gym the same time as me on Tiktok. I have since deleted the video.
I remember feeling uncomfortable while doing my walking lunges as we made eye contact frequently. I felt unsafe at that point of time and when I switched to my next exercise at the cables, I decided to film him for evidence (in case anything happened to me). It was getting late, I left the gym shortly after and looked through the video while I was on the way home. Hence, approaching him or the staff didn’t come across my mind.
While I was editing the video, I just wanted to get my point across that everyone should feel safe at a public space that is commonly dominated by the males. And females should be free to choose their outfits based on their likes and preferences and shouldn’t be judged for it. That’s all.
I’m fully aware of the consequences now and I should have handled the situation better. I had no concrete evidence to show to the public that the guy was staring at me as the video was filmed discretly on ground level and at an awkward angle. Additionally, posting one’s personal privacy to the public is illegal and could have serious damage on one’s future aspects such as reputation tarnishing.
I’m sorry to the guy I’ve posted in the video – Also, I don’t have your contact. Please reach out to me so I can apologise to you personally too.”
Michelle Lim via @michxlim