YouTuber Gives Homeless Man $100, Records The Amazing Way He Spends It [Updated]

Josh Paler Lin recently witnessed an act of kindness from an unexpected source. The YouTube prankster, who boasts over 750,000 subscribers on his channel, gave $100 to a homeless man named Thomas and followed him to see how he would spend it.

In the video titled “How Does A Homeless Man Spend $100?”, Lin wanted to see how a homeless person dealt with a chunk of change. He meets Thomas near a California freeway entrance and hands him $100 worth of bills. After following Thomas for nearly an hour, Lin is shocked to see the homeless man purchase food (not alcohol) from a liquor store and pass it out to other homeless people, many of whom he doesn’t even know.

“I wasn’t expecting to get this kind of footage… to be honest, I thought this video would be more an exposing homeless people video at first,” Lin wrote in the video’s description. “But I’m so glad that I could witness and capture such a beautiful moment.”

Thomas tells Lin at the end of the video that many homeless people are victims of circumstance (much like the homeless man named Sandy from Austin, Texas). Thomas was one such person. He lost both his parents a few months back, as well as the condo they all lived in. Without a job, Thomas was forced onto the streets.

Lin’s video now boasts over 22 million views. The YouTuber who calls himself the “craziest Asian prankster alive” has started an Indiegogo campaign to raise enough money for Thomas to get a cell phone, a place to live, and a well-paying job. The campaign has already hit over $100,000 as of this writing, fully funded at a whopping 1032% of the original $10,000 goal Lin set.

However, there are still 22 days left to raise money for Thomas. So if you feel like bumping up those numbers even more and giving Thomas a better life, just as he tried to do for others, head on over to the Indiegogo campaign to donate.

Update, 1/2/2015: According to Vocativ, an eyewitness has claimed Lin’s entire video was staged. Gawker also notes another person claiming to be Thomas’s brother said he is in no way homeless and will in fact inherit an estate from their deceased parents.