Videos of Strangers Reacting to Compliments Are Melting Hearts Online

It is nice to be nice, as one TikTok account with more than 3.5 million followers is demonstrating.

La La Land Kind Cafe, a chain of cafes dedicated to hiring foster youth, frequently posts videos to their page that compliment strangers—and people love it.

The account has shared 40 videos to date of "drive-by kindness," with a total of 47.8 million likes.

One particular video, shared on September 2, has surpassed 6.5 million views and is a great example of the joy that words bring. It can be watched here.

It begins with a woman sitting in the front seat of a car shouting compliments at strangers.

She tells one woman: "I love your dress, it makes your skin tone look great," then shouts at another man that he "looks like a movie star".

One lady in uniform is told she is "doing really great" at her job, before two younger women are informed that they "look like the main characters today." Various others are given positive comments about their clothing and hairstyles.

All these people react with beaming grins and gratitude, but the star of the video is an elderly woman who is told by the video creator that her shirt "looks really good on her" and she "loves" it.

The older passer-by, who is wearing a pink-striped T-shirt, looks down at her outfit before saying: "Oh damn...nobody's ever said that. Thank you!"

The clip is captioned: "VOLUME UP for the lady at the end! she made our entire week drive-by kindness ep.38 #drivebykindness #spreadkindness #spreadlove #bekind #fyp."

Her sheer delight is no doubt the reason that the footage has more than 1.7 million likes and nearly 10,000 comments.

One TikToker, Erica, commented: "Can y'all drive down my street? Could use some kind words."

Another person, Heidzzz6, asked: "Normalize kindness. It is actually way more fun to see what is interesting about people than what is wrong with them. Your message is amazing."

Another video, shared on September 8, has a further 42.8 million views and again is filled with compliments to strangers in the street. It can be seen here.

One lady admits that the words "will make her cry" while a red-haired woman was told she was beautiful and reciprocated it.

She said to the TikTokers: "That's so sweet. Well you're naturally beautiful and so are you! Drive by any time."

This video, which is one of many, attracted 9.3 million likes and over 44,800 comments.

An account called 13msat summarized the clip well, writing: "When the lady at the end started complimenting them back [crying-face emoji]. Kindness is contagious."