Social Media – The Answer To Everything Lost
Here’s a round up of a few incredible stories of lost and found on social media. Let’s dig into the list; it’s funny, awe-inspiring and some stories would give you goosebump moments.
1) Lost Twins Who Were Unaware Of Each Other’s Existence
A story right out of Hollywood script – twins separated at birth, spending a lifetime apart, and then a coincidence that brings them together. That’s what happened when Anais Bordier, a fashion designer in London, saw her doppelganger, Samantha Futerman on Youtube. When she first saw the video she was shocked. But later on when she searched for Samantha on the internet she discovered that they were born on the same day, in the same city and were adopted.
That was quite a number of coincidences and couldn’t be simply ignored. She then sent Samantha a Facebook message and connected with her last year.
They met a couple of times and bonded immediately. The girls however decided to take a DNA test to confirm what they really knew in their hearts.
Anais and Samantha born in South Korea were put up for adoption 26 years ago; Anaïs was adopted by a couple in Europe and grew up in Paris and Belgium. And Samantha began a new life in a New Jersey family – both completely unaware that they had a twin sister.
Their meeting was a coincidence; Anaïs’s friend showed her a YouTube video by the comedy artist KevJumba which featured a co-star who looked exactly like her. Also, they launched a fundraising campaign to document their Hollywood-like story.
They raised more than $40,000 – enough to pay for the DNA test too. BTW they took the test this year and it confirmed that they were 100% twins.
2) Lost Children
Stories of social media helping people finding their lost friends and family members aren’t uncommon. Now, there are organizations that with the help of social media try finding lost children.
Find Your Missing Child is one such organization. It was founded by Tony Loftis, whose 13-year-old daughter ran away from their home. Through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn he spread the word that he was looking for his daughter.
“We tweeted the heck out of it,” Loftis in an interview had told Mashable. His story was picked up by The Huffington Post, the New York Daily News, the Boston Herald and TV stations. After an extensive social media campaign he got the details of his daughter’s whereabouts.
3) Lost Pets
The story of Patch, an adventurous Jack Russell terrier who took a train journey on his own, went viral on Twitter. For the starters, Patch, went missing from his home in Kildare. His owner Deirdre Anglin spread the word on Facebook, but she received no response.
However, when she logged on to Twitter she found Patch’s picture with the message ‘Lost Dog’ posted by Irish Rail, and the picture was retweeted 500 times! Anglin wasting no time tweeted ‘That’s my dog’. Patch after leaving home had reached the local station and boarded a train.
At first the railway officials thought he was with one of the passengers but when he remained unclaimed till the last stop, the officials tweeted a picture of Patch.
Here’s Anglin and Patch reuniting
4) Lost Heirs
Last year there was a report published on how an Israel-based social media genealogy company is tracking heirs of property lost in Holocaust.
Before social media, the search for the heirs wasn’t an easy process as most of the Holocaust survivors had died and tracking the descendants was nothng short of an Herculean task.
But with the rise of social media the task of tracking the heirs seems a possible one. “We are only just seeing the huge impact that social media will have on Holocaust history,” said Robert-Jan Smits, the director-general of the European Union’s commission for research and design. “We are moving from dusty archives to digitized databases.”
5) Lost Toys
Well, the list doesn’t stop at lost heirs. Add lost toys to it. #lostbear helped Pheobe Simpson get back her toy named Roar which she lost in train on a trip to London. The bear was found by Lauren Bishop Vranch on the train; she posted a picture of the lost bear on her twitter, urging her followers to help her trace the owner.
She wrote: “Found this well loved little dude on an East Coast train at Kings Cross – let’s find the owner, Twitter!” Ms Vranch, was traveling to Newcastle when she found the toy. She tweeted that she would hand it to King Cross Station on her return to London the next day and added that in the meanwhile the bear would have some adventures in Newcastle.
Later on, she posted a series of hilarious pictures of the bear in Newcastle.“Little bear has found a cosy pub with a fire and a Christmas tree. Think he misses home tho.” And: “Bear has found his way backstage at Northern Stage Newcastle. He’s going to see some panto. Lucky bear.”
Thanks to the hashtag #lostbear the word soon reached the Simpsons. The appeal was also featured on a Facebook page called‘ Spotted on a train’. Pheobe’s dad posted on the page “Wow the power of the internet and kind folk – that’s my daughter Phoebe’s bear – she has been in tears all weekend and I have just shown her the picture and she is over the moon.
Thank you all so much! Phoebe is very much looking forward to being reunited with him. Thanks again to everyone!” Once again another happy ending – thanks to social media. BTW the lost toy was actually a lion not a bear as tweeted by Ms Vranch “Well done, internet!! It looks like the owner of #lostbear has been found. Bear is actually a lion – oops! 🙂
Know more such stories then contribute by posting on the comments section.
* Lost Twins Img Source – Telegraph
* Lost Dog Img Source – Independent