It turns out it is harmless enough to get many young men involved when there is a cash incentive but embarrassing enough to cause them many problems when these tickle videos begin to be posted everywhere online by the media group who own them.
In this one an enigmatic empire seems to lie behind the world of tickling, which is really not a competitive endurance based activity at all but an odd sexual fetish. It shares the concept of a documentary following a mystery route where strange secrets are uncovered. Tickled has been described as the new Catfish (2010) and not entirely without justification. This bullying encouraged the two film-makers to go to the United States to try and find out more about what dark forces were behind this seemingly innocuous, if somewhat bizarre, online activity. After some to-ing and fro-ing they sent over representatives to Auckland to meet Farrier and his fellow film-maker, which only led to further threats. He duly contacted the group who organised it, Jane O'Brien Media, but was met with a volley of abuse. New Zealand journalist David Farrier came upon the strange phenomena of competitive endurance tickling when searching online for new avenues to write articles on.
