VIDEO: Strangers meet for the first time, slap each other in the face
You may recall a video from a while back (March, to be precise) that set the internet alight for a week or so.
Entitled 'First Kiss', it brought together 10 couples who had never met each other before and rolled the cameras as they kissed, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes tenderly, sometimes passionately.
The video went super-viral at the time, racking up 84m views before being debunked (to an extent) as a viral ad for a clothing label, starring actors.
Now there's a new version, which again brings together couples - some of whom know each other, some of whom are just meeting - but this time asks them slap each other.
In the face.
Hard.
(Or at least, as hard as they want to be slapped)
And yes, that is Haley Joel Osment from the Sixth Sense. All grown up and beardy!
The video's maker, Max Landis, also made a helpful 'behind the scenes' video explaining what the thinking was behind it.
"It's not a parody (of the First Kiss clip)," said Max, who is the son of US film director John Landis and a screenwriter in his own right.
"It's sort of an experiment - the idea that if you put two people in front of cameras (and) refuse to interact with them there's nowhere for them to hide - they're directing each other."
Right then.
"The theory I have is that violence minus aggression equals intimacy," Landis continues.
"It's the idea of trusting someone to hit you and it being a social interaction.
"A slap, mitigated by permission, is a hug."
Meta.
It may be intended as a filmmaking experiment, a thought-provoking comment on actors' relationship with the camera and the director, and a treatise on the intimacy of mutually-agreed violence, but we sense it's gaining traction as "that clip where a bunch of hipsters slap each other."
What do you think?
