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A woman shared a story about a stranger approaching her in a parking lot on TikTok.
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She said she decided to yell “do not approach me” at the man to get him to back away from her.
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She faced intense criticism on TikTok from people who said her reaction was “over the top.”
A woman who shared a story about confronting a man who approached her in a parking lot has defended herself against criticism after her response was accused of being “over the top.”
The TikToker, who goes by Danielle Mitchell, said in a video filmed in a car, posted on March 29, that she was “literally shaking right now” after an encounter with a stranger who approached her and her child while they were alone in a mall parking lot.
According to Mitchell, the man walked toward her and was about 30 feet away when he said, “Excuse me, ma’am.”
“I turned around and I literally yelled at him, and I said, ‘do not approach me,'” Mitchell explained, adding that she kept saying those words “over and over” as the man turned around and started walking the other way.
“No male should ever approach a woman in a parking lot, ever,” she said. “If a male does approach you, you need to turn around and use the strongest voice that you can possibly use with them. Don’t be polite,” she advised.
The clip went viral, receiving 2.1 million views, leading to a wave of mockery towards her as people suggested her response was an overreaction. A campaign group told Insider that not only was her response reasonable, it can be “effective and empowering.”
As her video gained traction, many viewers mocked her story
Comments on the video have been turned off by the creator, but according to entertainment outlet Dexerto, many people had left negative remarks, insinuating that they thought the TikToker was overreacting.
“This was a little extra. How do you know he wasn’t trying to tell you something?” one commenter wrote per Dexerto, which reported that Mitchell responded to this comment by writing, “He wasn’t.”
Mitchell posted several follow-up videos defending her story. In one, she doubled down on her actions, saying she was “legitimately scared” by the man and wanted to protect her son, saying, “If that was an overreaction, then so be it.”
But commenters continued to ridicule Mitchell and say they thought her response was too extreme. Some users appeared to mock her by hypothesizing harmless scenarios in which the man might have been approaching her.
“Imagine if he was trying to tell her there was a car headed right towards her child and she goes ‘DO NOT APPROACH ME'” one user wrote.
“‘Ma’am you dropped something.’ DO NOT APPROACH ME,” wrote another viewer.
Several users on TikTok duetted Mitchell’s video, providing more detailed commentary on why they disagreed with her response. Some of these users also accused Mitchell of fabricating the video for “attention” and views.
“If I can’t approach a woman in a public place to say ‘excuse me ma’am, you dropped this’ without her turning around and screaming her head off and causing a scene, then we’re staring down the road into a future where we no longer treat each other with common decency,” one person said.
There were some viewers who defended Mitchell, saying she had a right to react however she saw fit in the moment, particularly because her child was involved.
“Why is everyone so triggered. She did what she felt she had to do being by herself with a baby, I say well done even if it was a false alarm,” one user wrote.
Mitchell’s response was not unreasonable, according to a campaign group
In one follow-up video, Mitchell said she based her reaction on advice she read in a book called “Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane),” by security specialist Gavin de Becker.
A spokesperson from the non-profit organization Stop Street Harassment told Insider that due to the high proportion of women who have faced harassment in public spaces in the US, “it is reasonable for women to be wary of any unknown man who approaches her in public places like a parking lot.”
The spokesperson added that Mitchell’s response to the stranger, as mentioned in her video, was also reasonable: “While there is not a ‘best’ way to respond in those situations, giving a command in an assertive voice like, ‘Do not approach me,’ and repeating it can be effective.”
Stop Street Harassment suggests that if people feel safe enough to do so, “assertively responding to the harassers calmly, firmly, and without insults or personal attacks to let them know that their actions are unwelcome, unacceptable, and wrong can be effective and empowering.”
As Insider previously reported, women who have used TikTok to share testimonies about public harassment and being made to feel uncomfortable by a stranger in public have often dealt with backlash after going viral on the app.
Some women told Insider the online response they faced was “retraumatizing,” placing them in a situation where they were made to feel fearful or concerned for their safety due to harassment from commenters who viewed their posts.
In some cases, women have retracted their initial statements about an incident because of online backlash, such as in January, when a woman apologized for calling a man a “weirdo” after saying he stared at her while she was at the gym, following intense criticism from users who said they did not think the incident constituted harassment.
Danielle Mitchell did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider’s Digital Culture team here.
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