Ripples

A video of a prankster pretending to steal money from a Red Baron employee's phone spread widely online this week, Newsweek reports. The worker, a father of four identified only as "Walt," angrily told the prankster it was not a joke to him; he said he was working late to make ends meet and was due back early the next morning to cover more stores.

A stranger in Arizona started a GoFundMe titled "Support a Harassed Red Baron Worker." Per Newsweek, it stood at about $5,500 on Wednesday afternoon, passed $48,000 that night and topped $100,000 on Thursday. Conservative commentator Benny Johnson helped spread the appeal, VINnews reports. The prankster's Instagram account has gone dark, according to Newsweek.

Newsweek's Shane Croucher argues the happy ending is "a lottery": viral attention rescued one worker, while most crowdfunding campaigns fall short.

YouTube is testing a Shorts bonus program, invitation-only, with creators in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and South Korea, Music Ally reports, citing YouTube's Rene Ritchie in a Creator Insider video. It offers a minimum payment for uploading a set number of public Shorts per month, plus a monthly "promotional payment" based on views.

The required numbers are not public; YouTube says they will be in the invitation emails. Music Ally notes the test follows YouTube raising its Partner Program thresholds in August and saying earlier this month that the Shorts algorithm will favor original content over re-uploads.

Several dozen people gathered outside Liberty Mutual's headquarters in Boston's Back Bay on Sunday, Oct. 25, calling on the insurer to stop running ads with its fuzzy yellow "Liberty Biberty" mascot, The Boston Globe reports.

The protest was organized by Connor Harvey, a 19-year-old YouTuber from Wilmot, N.H. He told the Globe it "initially started out as a joke" in a video called "Death of Mascots"; his follow-up "official announcement" drew more than 600,000 views and briefly topped YouTube's most-hyped list. The mascot, which debuted this summer, had already drawn mockery on Reddit, TikTok and late-night TV, including an Oct. 11 Last Week Tonight segment in which John Oliver said, "I hate this thing."

Protesters carried signs such as "Liberty from Biberty," and Harvey called it "the next Boston Tea Party." He said they would leave if asked. Liberty Mutual did not immediately respond to the Globe.

Videos of children dumping whole bowls of unattended Halloween candy into their bags, often caught on doorbell cameras, have become an annual viral debate, Parents reports via Yahoo. Data from the short-form trend platform Virlo, shared with Parents, puts candy-bowl etiquette videos at about 91.7 million views across social platforms. The article cites a survey finding doorbell cameras in about 39% of U.S. homes.

Virlo cofounder Deniz Sancar says the footage makes viewers "feel like they're standing on the porch," and the comment debates add to its shareability. Texas counselor Brook McKenzie argues that posting the clips confuses "accountability with humiliation" and that online ridicule can follow children through school. The article says taking the whole bowl is still wrong, but suggests parents correct it privately.

Instagram is testing a format called "Features" that lets creators post horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, the A.V. Club reports. Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who said "for a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram," announced it Monday, Oct. 26, in a nearly seven-minute video with product VP Tessa Lyons.

Lyons said people like watching Reels together on a TV, and a TV version of Reels needs more than short-form video. Mosseri described a "symbiotic" link between short and long videos across the mobile app and Instagram's TV app, and said the rollout will expand to more users over time. The National reports that it is being tested with select US creators after a trial in Brazil, and that Features videos will also appear in Instagram for TV, now on Apple TV in the US.

Neither executive named competitors, but the A.V. Club notes the move puts Instagram closer to YouTube's long-form territory.

When severe hail and wind hit Phoenix last week, employees at a PNC Bank helped street food vendor Hilario Cruz Cruz pull his customized cart inside, FOX 10 Phoenix reports. A video shot inside the bank has passed 1 million views on TikTok, with hundreds of thousands of likes.

Cruz Cruz, who sells elotes and fresh fruit along Peoria Avenue near Interstate 17, said the staff had bought from him for years. He recalled telling them the cart would not fit, and the manager answering, "I know it will." He said business has been booming since the video went viral.