A 2022 Margot Robbie Clip Went Viral Again. The Internet Rediscovers Kindness on Schedule

This weekend, one of the most popular posts on all of Reddit was a short video of Margot Robbie at a movie premiere. A fan who is deaf hands her a sheet of paper, she realizes it's a sign-language guide, says she knows it, sets her things down and starts signing with him. Reddit, three years late, lost its mind.

Now, I want to be careful here, because this is a nice story and I don't want to spoil it. But the video isn't new. It was filmed in September 2022, at the London premiere of Amsterdam, and it went viral the first time in July 2023, when Barbie came out and everybody was looking at Margot Robbie anyway. It was viewed millions of times back then. Outlets even disagree about which sign language she used, which tells you how many outlets wrote about it.

So here it is again, three years later, at the top of the internet, like a comet that comes around on a schedule. And I think that's fine. In fact I think it's the internet working correctly for once. Most of what goes viral twice is a fellow falling off a roof. It's nice to see the system recycle something decent.

There's an old rule that a good deed is never wasted, and the internet has updated it: a good deed is never wasted, it's reposted every eighteen months by an account with a frog for a picture. The fan, who did nothing but hope a movie star would talk to him, got exactly that, and he didn't have to do it twice. She did.

The lesson is simple. If you want to be remembered on the internet, you can do something terrible and be famous for a week, or do something kind and be famous every few years. The second one pays less, but it keeps coming back, like a good dog.