Walt Z. was stocking frozen pizzas at a supermarket in Michigan when an influencer approached him with a phone in hand.
He asked him what time it was, played an audio clip imitating an Apple Pay payment, and pretended to transfer him 10 dollars. It was a prank for his Instagram account. Walt, a Red Baron delivery driver and father of four, held it together for a few seconds. Then he broke down and explained to him, in front of the camera, how the gesture made him feel: he worked from sunup to sundown and still struggled to pay the mortgage.
The video went viral, and outrage was immediate. Luke Oakenshield, a Reddit user based in Arizona who didn’t even know Walt, started a GoFundMe fundraiser to give him some breathing room and a cushion in case he was fired. Within a few days, more than 9.000 people had donated, and the total had topped 410.000 dollars, according to The Post. Walt wrote that he was “absolutely overwhelmed”, and Red Baron came out to say he was still with the company. The influencer was looking for a laugh; instead, he showed thousands of people what it takes to make ends meet.