A prank meant to humiliate a Red Baron worker backfired—now strangers have given the dad of 4 more than $760,000
Source: Fortune ·
A viral stunt aimed at a Michigan father stocking frozen pizzas late at night has turned him into a symbol of America’s affordability squeeze, and made the prankster an online pariah.
From the source
The internet has a well-worn genre: Film a stranger at work, needle him until he snaps, post the meltdown for views. This time, the genre flipped. A video of a prankster faking an Apple Pay theft from a Red Baron Pizza worker as he stocked a grocery store freezer has made the prankster an online pariah. It has also turned the worker, a Michigan father of four identified only as Walt Z., into the beneficiary of a GoFundMe campaign that had raised $761,514 as of publication. Among the donors: Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate and GOP nominee for Ohio governor, who gave $38,000. What happened in the video The clip opens with the cameraman asking the worker, who is wearing a Red Baron shirt and loading frozen pizzas into a case, what time it is. When Walt pulls out his phone, the prankster holds up his own device, plays a sound mimicking an Apple Pay transaction, and claims he just took $10, NBC Chicago reported. No money actually changed hands. “Listen dude,…
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