How a Dollar General Employee Went Viral on TikTok
On Tuesday, after the company announced a new $2 million scholarship program, a dollar general employee went viral on TikTok. In just two minutes, he convinced the TikTokers he was actually a real, live dollar general employee (or so he thought, anyway).
Here’s what happened: a dollar General employee named Chris, who works in the shipping department, posted a clip of the dollar store employee explaining the company’s new scholarship program. He followed through on the viral, posting a video of him signing the check. The video reached over 700,000 people and, according to CEO Mike Duke, was viewed more than 30 million times before the company shut down it’s TikTok accounts to scrub them of inappropriate content.
Duke told Quartz that he took it as a sign from a higher power. “I’ve been in a long line of people who have turned things around,” he said. Some examples, he said, include how he encouraged a former employee to come out of the closet after he had been out of the closet and how he was able to stop a man from killing himself at home by helping him make a deal.
“I think it was a huge sign from him that maybe, just maybe, there was an opportunity for Chris that that was a little bit out of his league in the past,” Duke said. “So, it was a small act of faith on his part that it was bigger than his job.”
After the video went viral, Duke shared his thoughts on social media. “I’m not the hero in this,” he wrote. “Just another dad trying to help a guy that needed help.”
Here’s a video of Chris’ reaction. The video is too short (less than a minute) to convey his feelings:
Chris’ TikTok account is back up as of Thursday morning, and he says he’ll be back once he gets a raise. “I
