Some store associates at the Best Buy in Valley Stream, New York took it upon themselves to purchase a Wii U for one of their customers after seeing him come in on most days to play Smash Bros. on the display version of the console located in the store’s game section.
The early Christmas present caught the teen by surprise, with the employees who presented it to him trying convince him that it was his, box, warranty, receipt and all.
The video above was recorded and uploaded by Rahiem Storr, who according to his LinkedIn profile has been with Best Buy for nearly ten years. On the video’s YouTube page, he wrote,
“This kid came in every single day to play the display Wii U, the employees in this store saw an opportunity to make a child smile and did just that. They chipped in and purchased a Wii U for him with their own money. This is amazing, why shop at Amazon when you have genuine people in this world that you can continue to help keep a job.”
The store’s General Manger confirmed the loose details of the story in a phone call, saying that the teen visited the store often and the plan to buy him a Wii U was hatched by associates from the Appliances Department. He didn’t become aware of the gesture until the video later went viral.
Currently, a new 32GB Wii U bundled with a game goes for $US300 ($403) at the store, at least according to Best Buy’s website. And in the comments, Storr said that one of the associates offered to drive the teen home so that he wouldn’t have to walk home alone with it.
After the video went viral, it garnered a number of reactions from people in the comments sections of YouTube and Reddit, some of which ranged from cynical to just plain mean, proving that no deed, good or bad, can exist online without becoming a flash point for random people’s opinions. This led Storr to upload a second video in which he responded to the hate, saying “This is exactly what’s wrong with the world.”
In the comments of the original video, Store wrote,
“Whilst people have some horrible opinions about Best Buy associates I can not begin to express how wrong they actually are. I posted this to show otherwise, can’t tell you how often I give people discounts or children that save money to buy items and come up a few dollars short. We are here to complete people’s lives not take away from it.”
While the Wii U has struggled as a console, there’s no shortage of great games for it, with Smash Bros. being right up there at the very top.
Comments
8 responses to “Best Buy Employees Surprise Teen Who Visited Store Every Day To Play Smash Bros.”
‘Why shop at amazon…’ mate don’t ask a questions you don’t want the answer to.
Props to the team though, nice work.
Wow… finally a story about humanity that makes you smile.
This is a wonderful story. Makes me happy to see these employees at Best Buy do something nice for someone like that. 🙂
It’s horrible to hear that the majority of comments on the Internet about this video are negative. Yeah, there are a lot of trolls… but do people seriously have nothing better to do with themselves or their lives, but criticize others and spread negativity? Are we failing that hardcore as people and as a society?
i go the porche garage once a day…
nek minit on Ebay…….Brand New Wii-U For Sale
The kid will want a Nintendo Switch come March.
A good deed doesn’t exist unless you tell everyone about it.
Used to go into Toyworld every day after school to play Mario 64.
Woman behind the counter was so personally offended, she used to try all sorts of tricks to discourage me.
You could see steam coming out of her ears as she demanded I stop playing & let other kids play during my turn (we took turns, you die or finish a level, you pass the controller on).
One faux she even started playing (badly) herself until I left the store.
I wasn’t the only kid doing this & I doubt she didn’t only do this to me.
I always found it funny, as if it was her store (she wasn’t the owner, it was an old gray haired man who didn’t care what we did). & her Nintendo 64.