Last Thursday Yueyue, a two-year-old Chinese girl, was hit by two vans in a crowded marketplace in Foshan, China. As she struggled for her life on the pavement, 18 bystanders walked past. None stopped to help.
Starting this week Reddit users have latched on to the story in outrage. They’ve followed it closely, from the first reports of the incident to the false reports of her death (she’s still in intensive care, according to China blog the Shanghaiist). Many have taken to serious discussions about Chinese culture, but others have launched into diatribes that border on xenophobia and racism.
“Its not uncommon for ppl to run ppl over several times to make sure they’re dead so its cheaper to kill them than let them live,” redditor Doctor_Pedobear wrote. “People in china keep to themselves, if there is no benefit to them or make things more difficult for them, they won’t offer any help.”
“Life is truly cheap over there,” drunkasaurusrex replied.
Of course, many Chinese Web users have been reacting with comparable outrage—minus the xenophobic cracks. ChinaSmack, an English-language site that tracks Chinese Web culture, compiled a list of reactions across the Chinese web.
“Those people who walked by are animals. No, even some animals have compassion and would at the very least stop to take a look,” wrote one Web user on Chinese forum NetEase.
Wrote another: “The driver should die. The child’s parents have some responsibility that cannot be shirked, especially the mother.The passers-by who ignored an injured child are as low as cats and dogs, simply unbelievable.This video shakes the soul of every conscientious person.”
And while redditors pontificated on what makes Chinese people so cruel, the most salient comment of the discussion came halfway down a recent thread.
As redditor greenRiverThriller pointed out, this doesn’t have anything to do with China; these events happen all around the world and often have very little to do with a certain population or culture.
It’s called the bystander effect, and it’s a sad but well-known part of human nature. People in groups, it turns out, are just a lot less likely to help an injured person out.
The bystander effect doesn’t just apply to China’s crowded public places. The same thing happens in Western societies—and online.
Earlier this year charity worker Simone Block threatened to kill herself on her Facebook page. Her friends did nothing to help — well, except to mock her. The 60-year-old Brighton, England native was found dead the day after Christmas.
“Everyone just carried on arguing with each other on Facebook like it wasn’t happening,” Back’s friend, Samantha Owen, told the Daily Mail. “Some of those people lived within walking distance of Simone. If one person just left their computer and went to her house her life could have been saved.”