Controversial YouTube videos question if people go too far - Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

Controversial YouTube videos question if people go too far

With the Internet, questionable behavior is always on display. A few recent examples caught our eye.

Like what happened when a Scottish woman went to South Africa for her 60th birthday. Violet D'mello paid $7 at a wildlife park to go in a cage with two cheetahs and pet them.

Some other tourists were in there as well, including children. The cheetahs were said to be raised by humans, and safe. Can you see where this is going?

D'mello intervened when a cheetah grabbed the leg of an 8-year-old girl. She heroically got the girl free. But then the cheetahs turned on her. Her husband had been snapping photos. The strange thing is he continued to snap photos -- even while she was being mauled.

The woman decided to play dead, and it worked. She had bites on her head, stomach, and legs. But none was life threatening. After three minutes, park workers got the cheetahs away.

D'mello's husband says it all happened quickly since he was focused on taking pictures; the attack did not immediately register in his mind.

A mother in Oregon is also taking flack for a video she posted on Facebook. She had taken her 13-month-old son to the zoo, where a lion tried really hard to eat him.

The lion was behind thick glass and at first the boy didn't realize the lion was there, but she told him to turn around and look. The little fella was still unphased.

However, people posting comments online are blasting the mom for videotaping and laughing, instead of moving her son away. The lion was apparently attracted by his sweatshirt, which looks kind of like a zebra.

A study says six percent of American adults admit to sending nude or nearly-nude photos of themselves from their cell phones.

There's now even an app to help them avoid being caught. "Snapchat" lets the person receiving the photo view it for just 10 seconds, then the photo is automatically deleted.

So what's with people that we're sending lewd photos of ourselves, we're oblivious when a spouse is getting mauled, and we laugh at the idea of a lion trying to eat our baby?

So this begs the question: Is technology making us wacky? Psychologist Dr. Stuart Fischoff says people just want to be famous.

"A person feels if I'm on camera I've been cut from the heard of mediocrity, 'I'm not someone special.' I think that dominates all sense of propriety and caution and privacy," Fischoff said.