With over 41 million views, I’m sure by now a lot of people have seen the viral TikTok video of influencer Halley Mcgookin, known to the internet as Halley Kate (@halleykate), talking about her assault on the streets of New York City. The now-viral video was posted on March 25, documenting the shock she experienced directly after her attack.
In the video, Mcgookin shakily says, “You guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face.” In a follow-up video, she mentions that she was looking at her phone to send an email, but no one was around her on the sidewalk. She believes this man, walking his dog, aimed to send a message about being conscious of her surroundings. “Which now I f*cking will be,” she says.
After being punched in the head, Mcgookin fell to the ground, blacked out for a moment, and then got up to find the man screaming at her. “He was screaming at me — like screaming at me — and I was just… scared, so I literally just ran away.”
While this video may have been the first of its kind to gain traction, it, unfortunately, has definitely not been the last. As the days have progressed, more and more women have shared their stories on TikTok of being randomly punched in the face in NYC. What is going on?
Honestly, after seeing Mcgookin’s video, I didn’t think much about it. Once I got over the absurdity of the experience itself, I figured it must’ve been some unlucky incident. A wrong place at the wrong time kind of thing. What I didn’t expect to see was my For You Page to be taken over by multiple other women in NYC who have been randomly punched in the face as well.
Olivia Brand, another woman on TikTok (@olivia.brand), posted a video on March 17, before Mcgookin’s video. Brand says, “I literally just got punched by some man on the sidewalk. He goes ‘sorry’ and then punches me in the head.” This video gained more traction after Mcgookin’s video was posted, and many people began making connections between the two in the comments, comparing Brand’s experience to Mcgookin’s.
After receiving comments asking her to provide more details, Brand says in a follow-up video, “I wasn’t looking down at my phone. I was just literally across the street from my building walking my dog to the dog park. I had seen the man. He was, like, slightly walking toward me, and I didn’t think anything of it.” She says that the man did not have a dog, like the man in Mcgookin’s assault did.
The third TikTok I came across about a woman getting punched in the face in NYC was from Mikayla Toninato (@mikalyatoninato). Toninato texted her friends after the incident, “and then they sent [her] a TikTok of this other girl in New York who got punched in the face” (which would be Mcgookin’s TikTok posted just hours before).
Toninato mentions that she was also looking at her phone in the lead-up to her attack. Through TikTok, she has been able to connect this man to the assaults of multiple other women who have also dealt with being punched in the face while walking the streets of NYC. Still, it seems like he’s not the only one.
Hearing about one assault is awful, but seeing the second, and then the third, the fourth, the fifth, and so on being reported had me absolutely baffled. An account on TikTok, @pamelawurstvetrini, has a folder called “Got punched in the face in NYC,” with over 30 videos in a collection. These videos are all of women describing their experience getting punched in the face in NYC, and that’s just on TikTok alone.
The awareness brought to these recurring incidents through social media has led to women encouraging each other to stay vigilant and off their phones while walking in NYC. As Toninato mentions at the end of her original TikTok, “I guess if you’re in New York right now and you’re walking while looking at your phone, maybe don’t do that… I guess we’re gonna be super aware of our surroundings.”
Stay safe out there, ladies.
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