By DIMITY KIRKWOOD

A month ago, three students approached a homeless man on the street.

One of them sat down and asked for the man’s drum. He then started playing it, and the student’s friends joined in with a guitar and they made a song.

The clip is incredibly moving and has now been seen on YouTube by over 11 million people.

To put this in perspective, this is roughly 203,700 times more popular than Robin Thicke’s album launch in Australia.

But something’s not quite right about the video. See if you can pick it:

The “homeless” man is actually not homeless – he’s a paid actor.

At first, this made me feel furious. How dare they get an actor to impersonate someone whose situation they could in no way understand?

It all felt very wrong. Until I read the description under the video by the students:

The students also said:

Now, I don’t know. Is the video demeaning to people without a home? Or, does it raise awareness and encourage compassion?