Adorable YouTube grandpa soars to fame thanks to a heartwarming shoutout from fellow creator

A popular Instagram user turned life around for an elderly man who runs the YouTube channel Grandpa Reads the Comics by asking his followers to help. Before the internet did its rare and wonderful life-changing magic, the sweet old man only had around 200 subscribers and had not uploaded any videos in the past two years. That is until Cole Caetano, an Instagram user who goes by @karvetv, posted a video introducing his 146k followers to the adorable grandpa by sharing wholesome clips of him playing the piano, dancing and making a smoothie.

The sweet man always ended his videos with a positive message for the audience, but they received very few views. The Instagram user requested his followers to convince the man to return to making videos. The channel, Grandpa Reads the Comics, had posted over 400 videos in which the gentleman read from various comic strips, reports Insider.

Within days of Caetano's video, the grandpa's YouTube channel blew up. It shot up to over 180,000 subscribers in just two days and now has nearly 500,000! He has also started a TikTok account, where he now has 42,000 followers. The elderly social media sensation thanked all of his new fans "and all the new friends" and promised to try and make a new video every day going forward.

In another follow-up, he acknowledged the rise of his YouTube channel, saying, "You've like, breathed life into this old man." The man, whose name is Craig Hansen, also has an Instagram page called Grandpa Advice with over 86,000 followers. He was also seen in an Instagram video with @karvetv, where he offered thanks to the Instagram user for the attention he had brought to his channel. "If there was a Mount Rushmore of people that have helped my life, you'd be on my Mouth Rushmore, buddy," he said. 

Many people on the internet were truly touched by the story. In the comments section, one person noted, "Y'all, he started it in May, of 2020. He was trying to cheer people up in COVID." Another said, "He's everyone's grandpa now." A third addressed @karvetv and said, "I LOVE people like you. Your focus is on others. You don't know him, but that didn't matter to you. You just wanted to show love towards him. That's beautiful. We need more of this in our world today. Thinking of others before ourselves. Of course, I subscribed. Thank you for sharing this and God Bless." 

@karvetv also added in the comments, "We truly have the most loving community on the planet. You guys don't understand how much every one of you means to me, the amount of lives we change in a group effort is more than beautiful, the simple act of stopping by their pages for even a minute and pressing a few buttons makes all the difference. Let's continue to grow a kind community to consistently do amazing things for the wonderful human beings who deserve it."