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Despite all the trolling, sometimes social media is responsible for acts of heart warming generosity

SOCIAL MEDIA can reflect both the best and worst of human nature. While everyone is used to trolls, these acts of internet generosity will warm your heart.

3 min read
March 24, 2015 - 7:44AM

SOCIAL media affords us the ability to contact and influence people on the other side of the world without ever seeing the impact of such interactions.

Sadly this new-found power is all too often harnessed to disparage or persecute. So much so that the term “troll” has become firmly entrenched in the popular vernacular. Whether you believe it's the inevitable result of allowing people anonymity, or just the internet’s equivalent of a few bad apples, it’s particularly nice when the world of social media bucks the trend. For all the acts of trolling, social media occasionally becomes the domain for life-affirming acts of kindness.

Over the weekend a 13-year-old Canadian boy who suffers from Asperger syndrome had his birthday saved by strangers on Twitter after his mother didn’t receive any RSVPs to the boy’s party. The concerned mum, Melissa Camus, took to a local Facebook group to ask some friends to send birthday wishers to her son’s mobile phone.

“Some of you have seen me post about my son, Odin, his struggles with bullying, his difficulties with Asperger. Well, today is his 13th birthday. And, unfortunately, not one kid RSVP’d to his birthday ‘hang out’ invite,” she posted.

It didn’t take long for her request to be passed around and very soon, the young man was receiving well wishes from a host of celebrities, politicians and athletes.

The Toronto NBA, NHL and MLB teams all wished him a happy birthday, as did Elijah Wood and singer Carrie Underwood, ensuring the young man had a birthday he won’t forget.

Earlier in the year, the internet community set out to right a wrong after a man was shamed for his weight after a video of him dancing at a concert was posted online.

A user on social media site 4chan posted a picture of the man accompanied by the text: “Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing.”

After the post was picked up by a reddit user who condemned the original poster, it wasn’t long before writer Cassandra Fairbanks launched an online campaign to find the man in the picture, so she could arrange to do “something special” for him.

The result was thousands of twitter users joining the search for the man in an effort to throw a dance party in his honour. And he seemed pretty touched by the gesture.

Social media site reddit is often considered as one of the nicest communities inhabiting the world wide web. Aside from the occasional misstep of internet vigilantism the site is responsible for some truly lovely moments of mass generosity.

In 2012 the nephew of a terminally ill man who suffered from liver disease and down syndrome, took to the site to see if anyone would be willing to send his uncle some encouraging mail.

“One of my uncle’s favourite things to do is open mail, and I thought that if he got a lot of mail it would cheer him up,” said Sean O’Connor in the post.

The call out received over 1,300 comments in the first few hours with people expressing concern for his situation and inquiring about his interests.

Following the post, Mr. Widak’s uncle was inundated with mail and gifts from all over the world including custom artwork, supplies, DVDs and personal keepsakes addressed to the 47-year-old.

Humans of New York has become one of the most popular accounts on social media, as banker turned photographer, Brandon Stanton, posts photos of ordinary people on the streets of New York. The photos are accompanied with quotations that often relate to a personal struggle of the individual.

On numerous occasions, HONY’s followers are so touched by the small insight into the person’s life, they express a desire to donate money to help them out.

Mr. Stanton has harnessed this good will and recently managed to raise over $1.4 million for a Brooklyn high school after the post of a student talking about his teacher captivated the imagination of his followers.

In addition to providing much needed funds for the school, the initiative led the young man and his teacher to be invited to the White House by President Barack Obama.

So the next time you see someone post flippant or malicious remarks on social media, just remember, sometimes the internet can be a beautiful place.

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Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/despite-all-the-trolling-sometimes-social-media-is-responsible-for-acts-of-heart-warming-generosity/news-story/a07bcb22b0c2419d78aca72b49d3a0d5