It all started with one harmless tweet.
Kelsey Harmon posted a photo on Wednesday night of her grandfather eating a hamburger and wrote:
âDinner with papaw tonightâŚhe made 12 burgers for all 6 grandkids and Iâm the only one who showed. [crying emoji] love him.â
dinner with papaw tonightâŚâ¤ď¸ he made 12 burgers for all 6 grandkids and I'm the only one who showed. ? love him pic.twitter.com/0z0DkPtUiR
â kelsey (@kelssseyharmon) March 17, 2016
The image immediately went viral, with users on the Internet retweeting the original message over 100,000 times in the 24 hours after it was posted.
Users were so interested in Kelseyâs story that they began tracking down the other grandkids who failed to show up for dinner and began to harass them online.
One of the grandkids, Brock Harmon, tweeted a photo of himself with his grandfather to stop the harassment.
GUYS DON'T WORRY!!!! I CAME TO PAPAWS HOUSE AND AM HAVING A BURGER!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/2EHVllGG2U
â Brock Harmon (@BHarmon_10) March 17, 2016
PAPAW SAID HE FORGIVES ME AND WANTS ALL OF YOU GUYS TO KNOW YA'LL ARE AWESOME FOR MAKING HIM FAMOUS????
â Brock Harmon (@BHarmon_10) March 17, 2016
The Twitterverse refused to let up on the other grandkids, which forced Kelsey to respond with a message from her âpapawâ:
papaw is ok guys I promise & he loves all grandkids equally, plz stop sending my cousins death threats everything is ok !!!!
â kelsey (@kelssseyharmon) March 17, 2016
Eventually, more grandkids showed up to have dinner with their grandfather.
eating dinner at Papaws tonight with the fam!? @kelssseyharmon @BPpollard18 @r_pollard54 pic.twitter.com/M9YTAp6TRU
â â¨K u l b e t h⨠(@b2the_k) March 18, 2016
Finally, Kelsey posted a note that she never wanted this story to go viral on the Internet, and that sheâd never take advantage of her family.
really sorry to bring this up again, but replying to everyone is impossible. just want to leave it at this.. thx?â¤ď¸ pic.twitter.com/kr8LoJC5bH
â kelsey (@kelssseyharmon) March 18, 2016
While itâs upsetting that Twitter users took things too far sending death threats to the family, we wouldnât be surprised if this taught the grandkids about the true importance of family.
It shouldnât have taken 100,000 retweets for them to hang out with their grandfather.
What do you think?