UPDATED: Although not everyone is amused
You’ve heard the Mythbusters say it a thousand times: Do not try this at home. But such words to the wise are nowhere near as effective as actually showing what could go wrong.
A fellow by the name of Mehdi Sadaghdar demonstrates the concept in this YouTube video entitled: ‘Don’t worry, it’s just ESD! (Electrostatic Discharge).’ …
Reviews among YouTube’s commenters are decidedly mixed:
“Up next, Mehdi shows you how to use a table saw.”
“I am waiting for his gun safety class.”
“I really, really, really, REALLY, REALLY, R-E-A-L-L-Y hope this is all staged for laughs and you didn’t do that accidentally. If that was real, you’re the stupidest (&*^%) imaginable and should not be in engineering or electronics.”
Although a majority (to which I belong) seem to be of the opinion that the apparent shocks were all part of Sadaghdar’s attempt to make his point … and were just part of the script, in addition to being very funny.
“I’m pretty sure those were done on purpose so the lessons can have a more lasting impression along with adding a bit of humor,” writes one YouTuber. So stop ripping on the guy please.”
So real or staged? I say staged, but it’s been my experience that the best way to answer a question like this is to ask. I’ll let you know if Sadaghdar responds to my email.
(Update: Here is the man’s reply: “Thanks for posting my video. I try to create a script for my videos and I shoot every scene like 20 times to get it right. This is mainly because my English is quite rusty and I can’t speak continuously without language errors!
“In the case of the ESD video, I tried to avoid actually zapping myself, which didn’t quite work and I ended up zapping myself with 25kV quite a number of times! The scene you see is one of those times I ended up hurting myself! I noticed when the hurt is real people like it more, of course, and I’m not that good to create a convincing fake scene!
“Regarding the (YouTube) comments, I see that most people like it which is encouraging. In any case I love that people are leaving comments and communicating to each other.”)
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