A popular YouTube star brought new meaning to the saying ‘don’t judge a
book by its cover’ with a shocking social media experiment that saw him
dressing like a homeless person in order to see if staff at a restaurant
would treat him any differently.
In an attempt to prove that
appearances can always be deceiving, New York-based Coby Persin tested
staff at a Florida eatery to see how they would react to someone based
purely on what they looked like, before stunning them with the
revelation that they were in fact dealing with a millionaire.
In
a three-minute video, the 23-year-old can be seen approaching a
restaurant while dressed in an assortment of scruffy clothing and
carrying a large garbage bag, before asking to be seated by a staff
member who is standing at the entrance.
Wasting no time, Coby
approaches the man, who appears to be acting as a host, to ask for a
table for himself and his friend Ronaldo.
Ensuring that he
remains polite and courteous throughout their conversation, he also asks
whether it would be possible to see a menu.
‘Hi how are you? I would like to get a table for me and my friend Ronaldo – to see the menu maybe,’ he says.
But
the host, whose faced has been blurred out to maintain his privacy,
says that he is unable to seat Coby because he believes the restaurant
is ‘too expensive’ for him to afford.
‘I’m sorry. We’re not going
to be able to do it sir,’ he says, while blocking Coby’s access to the
eatery. ‘This place is a little too expensive for you.’
Clearly
put off by the interaction, Coby decides to give the restaurant host a
chance to redeem himself and asks again if there is a menu he can see.
‘Nope,’ the host replies bluntly. ‘We can’t serve you, we’re not going to serve you today. I’m sorry about that.’
And
even when Coby tries to tell him he has a lot of money, the host still
refuses to serve him and says: ‘Can you please get away? Go eat at
McDonald’s – some other options but not here.’
Coby then backs away from the restaurant and is heard uttering a ‘wow’ as he dials his driver Ronaldo.
But as he starts dialing, the host asks if he can make the call off the restaurant’s property.
‘Can you please get away,’ the host asks again. ‘Stand over there.’
But
the host is in for quite the surprise because Ronaldo drives up to the
restaurant in a Rolls Royce with a suitcase of cash in the trunk.
Ronaldo then hands the suitcase to Coby who shows it to the host.
Coby
says: ‘I told you I had money. What’s crazy is the way you judged
people just by there appearance. I might buy this spot just (so) I can
fire you – you’re lucky.’
Ronaldo and Coby then go to the ‘steak spot down the street’ leaving the host speechless and ashamed.
This
isn’t the first social experiment video, Coby has done. One of his most
recent ones involved the vlogger planting trees in New York City pot
holes.
He came up with the green-thumbed idea after he himself hit a pot hole and ruined the tire of his car.
He said: ‘When I was driving around New York City, I hit a pot hole and my tire popped and I had to buy a new one.’
‘So
I was thinking to myself, how as New Yorkers can we avoid these pot
holes? Had I seen a plant inside the pot hole, I would have drove around
the plant and not hit the pot hole.’
He added: ‘So I’m going
around with different sized plants and putting them in different sized
pot holes so New Yorkers avoid them.’
