Thread: Caine's Arcade

This video has single handedly restored my faith in humanity. This shows the birth of an entrepreneur and the power of social networks. It's worth the ten minutes, trust me.



Here is an article Forbes wrote about it.

A friend just sent me this video from Colossal, and it has apparently been making the viral rounds. It’s a ten minute short film by independent filmmaker and animator Nirvan Mullick. Here’s his setup for the film, “9 year old Caine Monroy, who built an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad’s used auto parts store, is about to have the best day of his life.”

The story goes like this. A nine-year-old boy spends the summer hanging out at his dad’s shop in East L.A. His dad is busy working, so all Caine has is lots of time, lots of cardboard boxes, packing tape, all sorts of odd mechanical parts—and an amazing imagination. Over the course of the summer he builds a series of increasingly elaborate arcade games out of cardboard and comes up with all sorts of ingenious ways to recreate the mechanical features of real arcade games. He works on his signage and his pricing, “A dollar gets you four plays, and a two dollars gets you a five-hundred turn Fun Pass.” My favorite bit is where he describes how he has attached calculators to each game so that the “Fun Pass” can be authenticated! It has something to do with the square root key.

So Caine puts all of this effort into his arcade, but his dad’s business has mostly migrated to eBay so there’s barely any foot traffic. Then one day Nirvan stops by the shop for a used door handle for his ’96 Corolla. He is entranced by the arcade and becomes Caine’s first (and most enthusiastic) customer, immediately ponying up the two bucks for a Fun Pass.

What Nirvan sees in Caine, and what we can now all see through Nirvan’s film, is what creativity and entrepreneurialism look like in their nascent state. Nirvan recognizes the building of these elaborate, imaginative worlds as being akin to his own stop-motion sets. This is what creative people do, from filmmakers to the founders of tech startups, they believe into these worlds and make them real.

He also saw how the kind of media smarts that he brings to Interconnected, the “media strategy, design, and consulting agency specializing in creative campaigns for brands and non-profits,” that he runs with partner Harley Cross, could be used to make Caine’s day—and change his life forever.

Nirvan got the word out through Facebook and created a huge flash mob that surprised Caine at his arcade one Sunday last October chanting, “We came to play!” What’s touching here is that this isn’t some far-off place in the developing world and this is not the dying wish of a child with cancer. This is just an ordinary boy in East L.A. with an outsized imagination and drive to make his own dreams material. Nirvan wanted to surprise him, to celebrate him, because he is a fan. The crowd showed up because it was a fun and uplifting thing to participate in.

And special commendation goes out to Caine’s father, George Monroy, as well. “And can I just say,” writes Christopher Jobson of Colossal, ”what an amazing dad to support, encourage, and allow his son to pretty much overtake his storefront for the sake of fun and creativity.”

KONY 2012 this is not, and, boy, is that a relief! Assuming that this is not an elaborate (and incredibly believable) fabrication, it is an example of social media and viral video at its best. Sure, Nirvan has created some publicity for himself and his other projects. But the motivation, both of the flash mob event and of the film, clearly seems to be about bringing joy to people. Fingers crossed that Nirvan is not found running naked through East L.A. a week from now!

On the website for the film there’s a paypal button to donate to Monroy’s scholarship fund. The explanation reads, “Chip in $1 or more to help Caine to go to college. Imagine what this kid could build with an Engineering degree!” So far they have raised over $57,000. Pretty good start for a nine-year-old! But what if he wants to study filmmaking?

So fugging awesome!!! Props to Caine, his dad and Nirvan for incubating and demonstrating the power of imagination and the Internet.

Fantastic. I hope he never loses that innocent creativity.