Photo: TikTok
There's still some kindness left in the world.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Feb 08, 2023
An Italian TikTok account roughly translated to “The Good Inside” (@LobuonoInside), performs social experiments in public to see if there are people with good hearts out there that will go out of their way to help strangers in need.
The video that recently went viral was one shot inside of a mall, where a man pretended as though he was too fearful of walking down an escalator.
The social experiment was to see if anyone would help the scared man down the escalator.
“Social experiment number 4,” reads the caption on the video. “The world I would like to live in.”
The video, which received over 32.8 million views in just two days, was shot by another person on a railing not too far away from a flat escalator commonly made for people who may struggle with the stair alternative.
The videographer films a man at the top of the moving walkway, who is likely in on the experiment judging by the fact that he is wearing a microphone.
He paces back and forth, shakes his head, and continues looking around him to convince those around him that he’s fearful of going down the moving walkway, hoping that someone would help him.
After several passersby ignore the man and his obvious body language, a family of four passes by and enter the moving walkway.
Some 20 seconds into the minute and 15-second clip, the father of the family who was taking care of their stroller decided to help the man.
“Are you scared?” the man asks in Italian.
After the stranger nods to confirm that he’s scared of the moving walkway, the father asks his wife to hold on to the stroller in order to free him up to help.
The father walks back up to the top of the escalator, grabs hold of the stranger’s hand, and helps him onto the belt, saying “keep calm, relax yourself.”
The stranger, continuing the act, tells the man “I have always been scared [of escalators],” to which he replies, “don’t worry.”
Moments later, the man’s son walks back to where his father was helping the stranger, and asks what’s wrong.
Once the young boy is made aware of the situation, he reaches out to comfort the stranger, and says “Relax, I am here.”
The young boy slides down the mask that he was wearing and says “Don’t worry, I’m Batman,” and then joins his father by holding his other hand.
Once they reach the bottom, the father tells the man when he needs to raise his feet in order to step off of the moving walkway, and then congratulates him on making it to the end.
The heartfelt moment moved many people online who sang praise toward the man and his son.
When it was reposted to Reddit, many commended the father for his wonderful act of kindness, and even praised his parenting skills because of the way his son reacted as well.
“Dad is such a good influence on that kid, he's gonna grow up to be a great person,” one user wrote, as another replied “The manner in which the Father treated the scared gentleman taught a HUGE unspoken lesson to his son. So awesome.”
“When the kid grabbed his hand I might have cried a little,” revealed a third.
Despite the nature of the filming and the actor being staged, the father’s act of kindness was real and shows that there are still many people in the world with “good inside” of them.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.