Sometimes, the internet can be pretty cool.
Samuel Weidenhofer is what's called a "kindness influencer" who travels around to do nice things for strangers. His acts of charity get him lots of clicks (AKA revenue), enough to be featured in the BBC.
Putting aside the social media business model, and the edited videos, and the sad music meant to pull your heartstrings, a skeptic can still find diamonds in the rough of "kindness" TikTok.
Meet Ed Bambas, an 88-year-old Army veteran in Brighton, Michigan who got on Weidenhofer's radar:
Bambas explained to Weidenhofer:
I retired from General Motors in '99. In 2012, they went bankrupt and they took my pension away from me. The thing that hurt me the most was when my wife was really sick and when they took the pension, they also took the healthcare coverage and all but $10,000 of my life insurance.
Ed's wife Joan passed away 7 years ago after battling the illness, and Ed went back to work to make ends meet.
Speaking of his grocery store job, he said:
It wasn't hard for me to do it because I knew I had to do it. I'm fortunate God gave me a good enough body to be strong enough to stand there for eight, eight and a half hours a day.
While there are many reasons to criticize TikTok and influencers, one of the cool things is how they allow stories of small-town heroes like Ed to be heard by the world.
The video went viral, which led to a GoFundMe being set up to help Ed finally retire with dignity.
As of Wednesday morning, it has already raised 1.25 million dollars.
Ed says he hasn't watched the video yet.
I've never been on those programs. I don't own one of those fancy cellphones. In fact, I still have a flip phone just to talk to people.
Bambas's story isn't unique. Tens of thousands of GM employees lost their retirements when the company went bankrupt in 2009.
Lawsuits to recover the pensions of workers made it all the way to the Supreme Court in 2022, but the court refused to hear the case.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
