The latest iPhone craze sweeping the New York City subways is not an app, but a disturbing trend where creepy men send pictures of their private parts to unsuspecting women via iPhone’s AirDrop tool.
The New York Post tells the story of one such subway rider, Britta Carlson, 28, who received one of those pictures from an unknown contact July 27 while riding the uptown No. 6 train on her way to a concert.
“iPhone 1 would like to share a note with you,” read the note sent at 6:51 p.m.
She saw that the message’s subject was “Straw” and the sender was an anonymous stranger.
When Carlson hit “Accept,” without knowing what the mysterious message was, she was horrified upon discovering its contents.
“It was just a huge close-up picture of a disgusting penis,” said Carlson, of Bushwick, Brooklyn. “It really felt like someone had actually just flashed me.”
Carlson said she received the photo from the stranger because the AirDrop tool’s setting on her iPhone was customized to “Everyone” instead of her saved “Contacts Only.”
She added that she used the “Everyone” setting to send photos from work.
“It never even crossed my mind that someone may use it to send stuff like that,” she admitted.
Another woman, Frankie Navisch, 35, of Harlem, also revealed that a man sent a photo of his genitalia through AirDrop titled “Eduardo’s picture” to her as she left a train at Penn Station.
“I wanted to punch him in the mouth for carelessly buckshotting genitalia to phones that could potentially be owned by children,” Navisch said.
According to Apple’s website, the AirDrop tool allows iPhone users to transfer images and files to others nearby without taking up storage space.
Sex addiction therapist Brad Salzman told the Post that these incidents are becoming more common in the digital age.
“In the past, flashers would have to go out in public in a trench coat and risk getting arrested,” said Salzman.
In a similar incident that took place in July, a college student who received many unsolicited pictures of male genitalia via Tinder made a threat that if any guy sent her penis pictures, she would send them to his mother. When a guy challenged her on that, she followed through on her promise.