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© MoeAndET
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A homeless veteran begs
for change on a New York street. Passers-by ignore him, giving their money to a
teen begging nearby.
One man dumps his takeout on the unfortunate veteran, showing what he thinks of
his service. You won’t believe what happened next…
The
veteran asks the teen to “watch his stuff” as he cleans up at a nearby shop. A
few minutes later he returns, bringing a slice of pizza for the boy. Little did
he know that the “homeless teen” was actually part of a social experiment, set
up by two brothers from Brooklyn.
Mohammed
“Moe” and Etayyim “ET” Etayyim became YouTube celebrities for filming a series
of prank videos starting in early 2014. They have also made seven “social
experiment” videos highlighting child abuse, bigotry and the treatment of the
homeless.
RT America report continues:
In
this video, posted September 23, Moe and ET dress up their younger brother Omar
as a homeless teen and sit him right next to a genuine homeless veteran, trying
to scrounge up money for food. A six-minute video shows people persistently
ignoring the older man, and giving money to Omar instead.
At
one point, a man in a striped polo shirt and a fedora rebuffs the veteran,
sneering at his plea that he “served his country.”
“You
served your country?” the man says, before dumping the contents of his takeout
box onto the unfortunate veteran. “Here’s something that served your country.
How is that about serving your country?”
Asking
Omar to watch his possessions as he cleans up, the veteran returns shortly with
a slice of pizza for the boy – at which point Moe and ET reveal themselves.
Hugging the veteran, they hand him the contents of Omar’s cup and another $200
to get a hotel room.
“People
will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will
never forget how you made them feel,” the video’s parting message reads.
Residents
of Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge neighborhood and sons of a Palestinian immigrant, the
Etayyim brothers previously attracted attention of local media in June 2014,
after being criticized by community activists for filming their prank videos in
African-American neighborhoods of Brownsville and East New York.
One
activist said the brothers were “putting their lives in jeopardy,” according to
the New
York Daily News. In one video, for example, the brothers went up to random
people and asked if they “had a problem.”
Homelessness
is a serious problem in New York City, with an estimated 60,000 people – 25,000
of them children – sleeping in a shelter each night, according to a March 2015 report from the Coalition for the Homeless.
Some 300 city workers have
been forced into shelters or on the streets, unable to afford the skyrocketing
rents, according to a recent report by the New York Post. Mayor Bill de Blasio
has pledged to provide them with permanent housing.
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