KRISTEN'S STORY -
Guy Responds With Kindness To Racist Message, Gets Apology
Research has shown that social media can mess with our mental health and with all the people on the Internet expressing their feelings, it can get hateful and hurtful pretty fast. But a Twitter user named Abdul Dremali found a way to deal with the rude messages he gets with a positive spin.
The marketing consultant from Boston says he had a large social media following, which comes with “a lot of haters.” But he came up with a unique way to deal with insulting people. He says after years of getting defensive when someone insults him, he came up with the idea “to be overly kind as an experiment.” And it works.
After getting a hateful message from a stranger telling him to “shut the f**k up” and to “go back … wherever u came from,” Abdul turned it all around by responding, “U look really nice in your icon. What do you use to whiten your teeth like that?”
Within two minutes, the hater responds that he’s “usually nice, just a little sick right now” and adds that he likes Abdul’s facial hair and wishes he had some. They go on to have a convo about teeth whitening products and end it like they were old friends. The hater apologizes and Abdul tells him, “sleep well homie love u.” And the guy responds “love you too.”
He says he’s never talked to that guy again, probably because he changed his username after millions saw him being racist on social media, but maybe his positivity will help that guy respond differently in the future. It seems so simple, but his kindness is powerful, as one Twitter user puts it, “This is a superpower.”
JASON'S STORY -
Groom To Sue Pals After Wedding Day Prank
Wedding-day hijinks are all fun and games until the bridegroom gets chased out into traffic, hit by a car, and ends up suing the wedding guests.
The incident happened in November in China where apparently wedding hazing is a tradition.
But in the case of 24-year-old Ai Guangtao, his friends went too far: After throwing eggs, beer, and ink on the groom-to-be as he went to pick up his future wife at her house, they ultimately stripped him to his underwear, taped him to an electric pole, and beat him with a bamboo stick. Then, the final straw: the group poured ink on his face.
He couldn't see and as a result when staggering out onto the street. A car crashed into the road barricade trying to avoid him, then careened into him anyway, knocking him to the ground. Ai ended up in the hospital for three weeks with internal bleeding and a skull fracture—and police also found him responsible for the accident and, thus, the damage to the BMW. The car insurance company hit him with a $4,372 bill. Ai says he'll now have to sue his friends. The group had already admitted fault and contributed money toward his medical expenses.
Ai and his bride had already officially wed before the big day (as many do in China), and there was no ceremony after things went awry.