An American influencer and former finance analyst, Sam Beres (known online as Sambucha), ran a viral social experiment in New York City to test how quickly an unattended laptop would be stolen, with the results surprising many viewers.
Beres, an NYU Stern graduate who formerly worked as an analyst at Barclays before launching his YouTube channel in 2021, shared the video with the title: “How Long Does It Take For Somebody To Steal Your Laptop In NYC?”
The Five-Minute Theft
The video shows Beres placing a laptop in a busy area of New York City and walking away while running a timer.
- The Experiment: Initially, passersby showed little interest in the unattended device.
- The Outcome: After a few minutes, people began to stare. As the timer continued to run, an individual finally sat down next to the device and eventually took it away. The time taken for the theft to occur was just five minutes from the start of the experiment.
Social Media Reaction and Debate
The viral video prompted a wide range of reactions from social media users, fueling a discussion on crime and morality in the city:
- Focus on Crime: Many users took the video as a commentary on the city’s crime rate.
- Humorous Take: Others responded with humor, such as one individual who joked, “The engineer needed the laptop for work, so he borrowed it.”
- Charitable Interpretations: A few commenters offered a more charitable, albeit skeptical, explanation, suggesting the individual might have taken the device to find the owner and return it. One person wrote, “He probably took it home to see if he could find the rightful owner… You never know, man.”
- Police Handover Suggestion: Another commenter argued, “I’d have taken it and dropped it off with the police, so before you’re all judgy judgy, check to see if it was turned in.”
Despite the mixed reactions, the experiment successfully highlighted the risks associated with leaving valuables unattended in a metropolitan area.