Here is another example of a “no good deed goes unpunished“, which on an earlier post I mentioned about my own family’s punishment toward me for all the good deeds I have been doing for them for years, which they took for granted and swept under the rug like it was nothing. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that I’ve been punished as I helped a friend raise funds for their sick child that backfired too, so I certainly get Josh Paler Lin’s good intention in helping to raise funds for a homeless man, Kenni Thomas Nickel, since the youtube video he made on him went viral and people wanted to help out the guy.
I don’t know where I was that I only learned of it now, as it all started exploding on the internet around Christmas 2014. Probably dealing with my own family troubles wishing I could run away from! Since I came across it, I wanted to know the truth of it all because Josh Paler Lin got raked through the coals, about the video being staged, and questioned where the money raised for Homeless Thomas went to. First of all, if you are like me who just came across this story or were going in circles trying to find out some answers, here is the viral video of How Does A Homeless Man Spend $100.
In the video, Thomas went into a liquor store with the $100 he was given from Lin and surprisingly, instead of purchasing alcohol, he purchased food to give to other homeless people. This good deed touched a chord to viewers, that someone in Thomas’ position could be so charitable, which made the video an instant hit.
I want to point out that this youtube video till now has had over 44 million views so it alone has made a ton of money for Josh Paler Lin from ad revenue, and continues to do so. Besides that, he was already a popular youtuber to begin with, which his popularity has since increased to 2.5 million subscribers on his youtube channel, plus also has other videos he is earning from. Lin is known for his prank and social experiment videos. One thing is for sure, the Homeless Man video did fuel Lin’s career.
After the video went viral, Josh Paler Lin started a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo, called Help Thomas To Get A Fresh Start, which ended up raising over $145,000. Lin gave the guy a darn good Christmas, put him up in a hotel, got him new clothes and basically took care of him for a few months out of the money he raised for him.
But then a witness, Taugan Kadalim, put a damper on it by accusing Josh Paler Lin of staging the video because he saw Lin in a car, with Thomas, outside of the liquor store he was videotaping at. Lin replied that it wasn’t staged and probably the guy saw him after the video was filmed when Thomas already learned that he had been given a $100 to see what he would do with it, as they secretly followed and videotaped him. Both Lin and Thomas denied it was fake.
Then the worst happened, on May 28, Thomas was found in an alley unresponsive and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. The coroner determined his death was from natural causes contributed by chronic alcoholism. And on top, he was listed as homeless at the time of his death. That’s when it really blew out of the water when both Thomas’ father, William, and brother, Kevin, accused Lin of not giving the money to Thomas, with his father last stating “I’m going to sue the tail off him“. His brother also questioned why they didn’t show him getting some help instead of the star treatment in the follow-up makeover video.
It put a big question mark as to where the money went and why Thomas was still homeless.
Here’s a video from the Fox news station where Lin and his lawyer clarify, and provide proof, when and how much money was disbursed to Thomas. After indiegogo fees and other expenses, Thomas received $108,000 on March 11, 2015. That’s a big chunk of change for someone who was just begging for a dollar a few months before!
The Truth: JoshPalerLin DID Transfer over $108… by WaltonHedges
That means Thomas received $108,000 on March 11 but on May 28 he was still homeless, or became homeless again, and basically drank himself to death. It makes you wonder what he did with all that money in a little over 2 months after receiving it. Whether he gave it away, people took advantage of him, squandered it with excessive drinking or if there was still some left. As far as I researched, Thomas’ father didn’t file any lawsuit and no other mention about the money, so I am assuming it got resolved. Thomas did say in this follow-up video, Homeless Man Gets A Fresh Start In Life, “I want to be able to care for people I don’t know and people in need“. Maybe that’s what he did with the money, helped others but didn’t help himself.
Thomas definitely shouldn’t have been given the money all at once, more like overseen and disbursed slowly to get him back on his feet, including getting him a permanent place to live and treatment for his alcohol issues.Josh Paler Lin even though did make money from the hit youtube video, doesn’t need to apologize for it, as he didn’t know beforehand it was going to go viral like it did or what the outcome was going to be. Sure he took advantage for his own gain but, at the same time, he showed a touching story of sharing and caring, where he helped a homeless guy and the homeless guy helped other homeless people, showing people to be more compassionate towards the homeless by helping them instead of ignoring them.
Lin raised a large amount of money that Thomas certainly would never have been able to do on his own. What Thomas did with the money was his own responsibility since it was transferred directly to him with no conditions placed on it.
The lesson in this is that no matter how much you help people, is never enough, greed takes over and you get blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong.
Just a very tragic “no good deed goes unpunished“ story.
(youtube video link removed by admin)
Lol stop trying to make Josh Pauler look like some kind of Saint when you don’t even consider the other side.
I don’t think I was trying to portray Josh Paler Lin as a saint, just trying to show what had occurred. And it was more about how good deeds can go bad and getting punished for them, which happens all the time. This was a bad situation all around where, sadly, a person died and a lot more complicated than just blaming one side or the other. It just shows society as a whole is so focused on valuing money, as if instantly it’s going to end your troubles, than life. I gather you are here trying to spam your video to portray Lin as a murderer so can get more views (money) for yourself. Where are the facts in that? Sorry then, that I had to remove the link to that video because it is counterproductive, and just emphasizes my point exactly.
(Forgive my poor grammar) It is not even my video. I wasn’t even trying to gather views for that video, but rather, to have you be educated on the other side. I thought the people (H3H3productions), who made the video, would articulate the other side way better than how I would paraphrase it myself. Apparently, you did not watch the video based on how you responded. For example, how you still believe that the homeless man was taken over by greed and his alcoholism when it could be the other way around, where he could have actually not have gotten the money because he did not sign the contract due to some ill made terms and conditions. Furthermore, if Lin made a video out of compassion, why would he even need to make a video anyway to show his compassion when he could have just wanted the money. He even asked the homeless man to pay him back just because he took the homeless man around and bought him a suit. Whether it was out of compassion or not, he manipulated the homeless man by helping him and showing it to the public through a video, but later asked for compensation. Is it not messed up to help someone who has less than you just to get more fame and to portray youself as some saint even though you asked them to give something in return other than gratitude? However, I’d rather not continue to comment any further since you are not open to other ideas and focused solely on your own objective. Heck, you are not even open to leaving the video open for other people, who may stumble on this page, so that they could also view the other side because you believe that I’m “spamming” and trying to gain money when it is not even my purpose. If you think spamming is sharing to one site then it is not worth sharing ideas with you.
I think you have not thoroughly read my post because I was trying to present the events as they occurred, not trying to favor anyone’s side and even if I was, it would be my own opinion. When I was searching for the whole story, I kept going in circles to find out the answers to what all happened, mainly where the money went and why Thomas died homeless. So I gathered to explain and show, in one place, the main things that happened. Besides, this was more about the good deeds going wrong aspect of it.
The answer to the question of did Lin give Thomas the money, he sure did and was proven by a television station, a lawyer and legal documents. Yes there was money deducted for expenses such as indiegogo fees, legal fees, money Lin spent on Thomas, etc but Thomas received the bulk of the money. The question would now be what happened to all that money, Thomas was given, that in the end he was still homeless when he died. Yes, in hindsight, some big mistakes were made, as Thomas needed to be carefully monitored. The money should have been put in a trust account and disbursed slowly as needed to help him, cause of his alcoholism and homeless situation.
I am not being closed-minded but I think you are based on one video you saw portraying Lin the way you want to see him and maybe not as it really was. I only removed the link to the video, not disallowed your comments or opinion. I wouldn’t watch a video that starts of slandering and calling someone a murderer, that isn’t proven in a court of law, to get facts from, and who was not directly involved in the situation. And the more I am mentioning this video, more than likely people out of curiosity will search on youtube to find it and it will get even more views (and money) from it. I would think Lin has a case in getting it removed due to slander.
Your article is biased – you definitely did more than try to present the facts.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but facts are facts, you can’t change them.
The article sums up my point of view as well.
Unbelievable that his father is/was angry with Josh. He should have been angry with himself that he wasn’t able to teach discipline and virtues to Thomas in his earlier age.
That Thomas couldn’t handle the money, was his own fault, it had/has nothing to do with Josh.
It makes me sad that MANY people always blame others for their own issues/failures and never search the fault within themselves.
I guess that is a main reason for the suffering of humanity, this exact weakness.
Children are the future, because it’s easier to build up strong children than to repair broken adults, a well known aphorism.
Exactly. That is what people do, blame others rather than look at themselves.
Josh is a greedy piece of trash. This is not an example of “no good feed going unpunished”. You are twisting the facts to fit your narrative. What kind of greedy piece of s**t starts a gofund me, raises $145,000 for someone, and then takes a $20,000 cut for himself for his own expenses? The gofund me wasn’t for his f***ing expenses it was for the homeless guy, and he chose to spend his own money on the man prior to that. The homeless man owed him nothing and neither did the people who donated to the gofund me. Someone most deffinetly should have sued his a** for that $20,000 that he has no claim to but took for himself. He is a greedy piece of garbage and deserves every bit of hate he got from this and then some.
I don’t think I was twisting any facts. I tried to present a timeline of what occurred and answer the biggest question — what happened to the money raised for Homeless Thomas? It seems you are misunderstanding the situation because I don’t think Lin got $20,000 for himself. When the video went viral, there was a public interest in Thomas and a fundraiser was started to help him. Out of those funds there were fees and expenses incurred for the months Thomas was helped by Lin, and balance went directly to Thomas. Since funds were raised for Thomas, there would be no reason that Lin had to spend from his own pocket and not be reimbursed for those expenses.
The real question here is what did Thomas do with $108,000, that he was found homeless again — and dead in an alley — after a couple months of receiving them. You certainly don’t give an alcohol-addicted person loads of money so he can drink himself to death. In hindsight, the funds should have been disbursed in a way that could have helped Thomas because directly giving them harmed him. A very tragic turn of events but it doesn’t seem right to put the blame on the person who was trying to help him.
You are twisting facts as other people said. If you were simply presenting facts, people wouldn’t be posting here pointing out, how 1 sided your article is. No one is misunderstanding the situation. Facts? There is a excerpt from their legal contract, stating Josh was to be re-paid nearly 20k back in fees. You can look it up yourself. You even stated, he’s making a ton of revenue from the viral video. Do you think a person with such a huge income, and truly cared for raising money for a homeless person would ask 20k back in reimbursement fees?
Or how about the line where you wrote Josh raised a large amount of money, and was vilified for it. I mean wow. Just Wow. How one sided can you present a story. People were not triggered or vilifying him for raising the money, it’s how the money was handled, lack of transparency, and the fact that in the end, Josh was, and still is, monetizing the homeless for his own gain.
The most shocking part is your response to Jacob. “The real question is what Thomas did with 108k that he was found homeless again” It’s like you’re shifting blame to Thomas while completely ignoring the events that lead to his death. Somehow in your mind, what Thomas did with the money, is more important than the fact that a homeless man has died, and the ones probably responsible, are still walking around carefree.
“Doesn’t seem right to put the blame on the person who was trying to help him.”
Let me ask you this. Is it justified to exploit the less fortunate, under the guise of wanting to help others? Do you think a person who truly cared about the homeless, would be making a video of himself, giving 100 dollars to a homeless person, and then filming and uploading it? The true heroes of society are the ones that do this in their daily lives, without being thanked or raised up as some saint. You might say, but wait, he’s giving attention to an important issue. So why ask back 20,000 reimbursement? The original viral video is still making money. How much of that do you think is going back to the homeless? He’s making money monetizing the homeless and you aren’t just presenting facts, you’re defending him.
My intention in this article was to show how good deeds can get punished using Lin’s case as an example. When things go wrong, the person who had tried to do good gets full blame for it. Why is that? Frankly, you and others blaming Lin for all that went wrong proves my point exactly. By focusing on the 20K Lin took for expenses, is not seeing the full picture here. I mean, there is nothing hidden that he (like many others) make videos, that people watch, and those people who watched the video made it go viral. From there, a fundraiser took place where people donated to help Thomas.
What I tried to show is the timeline of events and answer the question of what happened to the money. The proof was provided to a tv station and, in their video, Lin & his lawyer gave the breakdown of expenses and the balance that went directly to Thomas, which was $108,000.
So the real question here is what did Thomas do with this $108,000, in the 2 months of receiving it, that he again was homeless and found dead in an alley which a coroner stated was from natural causes contributed by his chronic alcoholism. Anyone have the answer to this question?
If you want to put the blame, then put the blame on everyone from A to Z who was involved in this. Definitely, there are lessons in this tragic story for everyone.
Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions; and that is what Josh Paler Lin has done and paid himself for it from the donations, what a piece of scum.