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A third elderly Walmart employee has gone viral on TikTok and raised thousands of dollars.
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Creators are filming workers and hosting fundraisers in an emerging trend called #TikTokWalmartRetiree.
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The most recent version features a worker called Butch who received $50,000 in less than 24 hours.
For the third time in recent weeks, an elderly Walmart employee has gone viral on TikTok and received thousands of dollars in donations to support him financially.
A 42 second clip was posted to TikTok on December 17 by Rory McCarty, 53, who can be heard explaining to a Walmart employee named Butch that other workers had gone viral on TikTok and received large donations via a fundraiser. GoFundMe funds.
“Imagine someone collected that kind of money for you,” McCarty said at the end of the video, which has received over 2.3 million views. The caption read, “We should do this for Butch. Who would donate?”
“I want to donate to this lovely man!!!” a comment with over 1,800 as said. “This man must be the next #TikTokWalmartRetiree,” said a comment with over 3,000 likes.
On December 19, McCarty created a GoFundMe page called “Butch” which received more than 3,800 donations, aiming to reach a goal of $100,000.
“We went to $50,000 in 24 hours, then we went to $75,000 in probably less than 12 hours, so we’re at about $25,000 every 12 hours,” McCarty told Insider. As of Tuesday, he had received $84,255 in donations.
The filmed interaction was McCarty’s first time meeting Butch, but he said the employee ‘melted my heart’ and he was ‘amazed’ that the 82-year-old continued to to work.
McCarty said Butch told him on the phone Dec. 18 that he wanted to be fair to Walmart and give his two weeks’ notice before leaving, but that he was “done” working at the store. McCarty said he also received a text from Walmart employees telling him that Butch was “so excited he was dancing in the break room.”
In one TikTok tracking released Dec. 19, Butch said he had been working since he was 11 and spent 10 years in the Navy. He said he would use the money to “go to Florida to see my kids” and “enjoy my last 10 or 12 years.”
“I’m so happy for him,” McCarty told Insider. “He can still stay active, but stays active doing things he loves to do, instead of just grinding at 82 at Walmart.”
The trend seems to have started when a TikTok creator called Devan Bonagura posted a video of an 81-year-old Walmart employee called Nola on November 3. The video quickly went viral, receiving over 30 million views, and a GoFundMe to help her retire raising over $100,000 in 24 hours. By Tuesday, he had raised $186,318.
His story then was referenced by another TikToker who posted a similar video on December 13, featuring an 82-year-old Walmart employee and a link to a GoFundMe to help cover her medical bills, which she said were in the range of 10,000 $. The video also went viral, with over 14 million views and raised over $129,000.
The stories are often received positively in the comments, with people calling older workers “cute” and seeing the fundraiser as a heartwarming example of collective empathy.
But TikToks featuring “acts of kindness” have also drawn criticism. Some people who have been filmed for free stunts in the past described feeling “dehumanized” as a result. Critics have also suggested that individual fundraisers can be useful in the short term For those who go viral, but the trend can also simplify the root causes of the social ills they describe.
For more stories like this, check out Insider’s digital literacy team coverage here.
Read the original article at Initiated
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