Lemma the Optimist
@DoctorLemma • 428,027 subscribers
Strangers, animals & small acts that restore faith in humanity. Long-form storytelling and original photography. | Entertainment, Arts, Photography
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An elderly couple in the United States made national news after discovering a tomato in their garden shaped exactly like a rubber duck. In 2015, Marie Davidek was tending to her plants when she spotted the oddly shaped fruit, which had grown with a distinct head and beak. When she showed it to her husband Bob, he initially thought she was joking until he saw the clear resemblance for himself. Instead of eating it, the couple placed the unique tomato on their porch to display it alongside their regular harvest. Their simple discovery quickly caught the attention of local journalists and eventually landed the couple a segment on CNN.
Lemma the Optimist13,187,556 views • 4 months ago
19 years ago, a high school basketball coach put his team manager into a game for the final four minutes. The kid had never played a single minute of competitive basketball in his life. He scored 20 points. Jason McElwain was diagnosed with severe autism at age two. He didn’t speak until he was five. He couldn’t chew solid food until he was six. He wore a nappy for most of his early childhood. As a baby, he was rigid, wouldn’t make eye contact, and hid in corners away from other children. He tried out for his school basketball team every year and got cut every time. Too small. Too slight. Barely 5’6 and about 54 kilograms. But he loved the game so much that his mum called the school and asked if there was any way he could be involved. The coach created a team manager role for him. For three years, McElwain showed up to every practice and every game. He wore a shirt and tie on match days. He ran drills, handed out water, kept stats, and cheered every basket like he’d scored it himself. On 15 February 2006, the last home game of his final school year, the coach let him suit up in a proper jersey and sit on the bench. With four minutes left and a comfortable lead, the coach sent him in. His first shot missed. His second missed. Then something shifted. He hit a three-pointer. Then another. Then another. His teammates stopped shooting entirely and just kept passing him the ball. He hit six three-pointers and a two-pointer. 20 points in four minutes. The highest scorer in the game. When the final buzzer went, the entire crowd rushed the court and lifted him onto their shoulders. His mum tapped the coach on the shoulder, in tears. “This is the nicest gift you could have ever given my son.” McElwain won the ESPY Award for Best Moment in Sports that year, beating out some of the biggest names in professional sport. He’s 36 now. He works at a local supermarket, coaches basketball, has run 17 marathons including five Boston Marathons, and travels the country speaking about never giving up. When asked about that night, his coach still gets emotional. “For him to come in and seize the moment like he did was certainly more than I ever expected. I was an emotional wreck.”
Lemma the Optimist10,190,197 views • 4 months ago
Sixteen years ago, one man stood alone on a grassy hill at a music festival in Washington State, USA, and started dancing by himself. People glanced over and looked away. Some laughed. His roommate leaned in and warned him people were filming him. He did not stop. Then one stranger got up and joined him. Then another. Then the hillside tipped. Within minutes, hundreds of people were sprinting from across the field to be part of something that, thirty seconds earlier, had been one man being laughed at in a field. Someone filming from higher up the hill said quietly: "See what one man can do. One man can change the world." The clip spread across the internet in 2009. Entrepreneur Derek Sivers played it at a TED conference to explain how movements actually begin. Not with the first person brave enough to start, he argued, but with the first person willing to join them. Collin Wynter, the man dancing alone, later said he had no idea he had done anything special. He was just tired of watching everyone sit still.
Lemma the Optimist9,825,065 views • 4 months ago
10 years ago Australian surfer Mick Fanning encountered a Great White Shark during the final of the J-Bay Open in South Africa. The heat was being broadcast live when the shark surfaced behind him. Fanning reacted by punching the animal in the back to defend himself. His opponent Julian Wilson ignored his own safety and paddled toward the splashing to help. Fanning’s leash was severed during the struggle but safety teams arrived on jet skis to rescue both men. They emerged physically unharmed and the organizers cancelled the event.
Lemma the Optimist11,108,889 views • 5 months ago
A woman transporting rescue cats to their new homes had no choice but to put some in cargo. When the plane landed in Athens, Greece, she watched nervously through the window as luggage came down the ramp. Then she saw a baggage handler pick up each cat carrier slowly, crouch down, look inside, and gently talk to the animals one by one. He didn’t know anyone was watching. His name is Archie Ardales, 32, originally from the Philippines. When asked why he did it, he said the cats were probably scared because it was their first flight. He just wanted to comfort them.
Lemma the Optimist4,152,129 views • 3 months ago
Horses possess a remarkable anatomical feature called the “stay apparatus,” a system of tendons and ligaments that locks their leg joints in place, allowing them to doze while standing. This evolutionary adaptation means they can bolt from danger in an instant if threatened. But standing sleep has limits. To enter REM sleep, the deep, restorative phase where the brain dreams and the muscles go slack, horses must lie down completely. In this position, they’re defenseless. They cannot flee. They are exposed to predators. So they only do it when they feel absolutely safe. If a horse lies flat in your presence, stretched out and still, it’s offering you something profound: its trust.
Lemma the Optimist6,857,390 views • 5 months ago
In 1999, Hyundai Sweden released the "Toy Boy" ad for its Coupé. At a red light, a woman uses her electronic reclining seat to hide a young lover from her husband in the next car. The camera pans to show the husband doing the same to hide his own lover.
Lemma the Optimist7,935,493 views • 6 months ago
These two boys should be about 31 years old now. Back in 2006, the internet was united by a low-quality video from Mexico titled "La Caída de Edgar" (Edgar's Fall). The clip captured a moment of pure childhood betrayal. A young boy named Edgar attempted to cross a small stream on two loose tree branches, while his cousin Fernando jokingly threatened to move them. Despite Edgar's iconic pleas of "Ya wey!" (Knock it off, dude!), Fernando dropped the log, sending Edgar plunging into the muddy water. It was one of the first global hits of the YouTube era, turning Edgar into an instant legend.
Lemma the Optimist7,816,750 views • 6 months ago
Did you know the reason America rejected the bidet is largely because of WWII brothels? While the bidet was invented in 17th-century France to cleanse the aristocracy, it hit a massive cultural wall in the United States during World War II. When American GIs were stationed in Europe, they mostly encountered bidets in French brothels, where they were used for pre- and post-coital hygiene. As a result, the soldiers associated the fixtures with sex work and "immorality," rather than general cleanliness. When they returned home, they avoided installing them to keep their bathrooms "decent." This stigma persisted for decades, creating a strange global divide: while Japan and Italy view water as essential for hygiene (arguing that if you got poop on your arm, you wouldn't just wipe it with a dry paper towel), the U.S. and UK stuck strictly to toilet paper. It wasn't until the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 that Americans finally started buying them in record numbers. Are you Team Bidet or Team Paper?
Lemma the Optimist6,509,928 views • 6 months ago
13 years ago, a 20-year-old woman came home from her part-time job, changed into a crumpled green t-shirt she found on her bedroom floor, sat in front of her webcam, and recorded a video that would follow her for the rest of her life. Laina Morris had entered a fan contest run by pop star Justin Bieber. He’d asked fans to record their own version of his song “Boyfriend” from a girlfriend’s perspective. Morris decided to make hers as unsettling as possible. She wrote lyrics about taping a recording device under her boyfriend’s sleeve and stealing the key to his house. To fill time before the song started, she stared into the camera without blinking, eyes wide open, with a fixed smile. She didn’t win the contest. But a friend screenshotted her face from the video and uploaded it to the internet. By the next morning, her expression had become one of the most shared memes in the world: “Overly Attached Girlfriend.” People added captions like “Took you 15 minutes to get home. Google Maps says 12. Who is she?” Morris leaned in. She built a YouTube channel, landed brand deals with major companies, appeared on late-night television, and turned the meme into a full-time career with over a million subscribers. Then in 2019, she posted a video called “Breaking Up With You…Tube” and walked away. She said she’d been battling depression since 2014 and had been keeping it a secret. “I felt ashamed and I felt guilt for being stressed and overwhelmed with a job and opportunities that were so great. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t handle it.” She’s 33 now. Lives quietly with her dogs. In a recent interview, she was asked if the meme still follows her on dates. She said one date ended early after the person realised who she was, spent the rest of dinner texting people about it, and left saying, “I can’t believe I just went on a date with the Overly Attached Girlfriend.” What’s something from your past that people still associate with you, even though you’ve moved on?
Dr. Lemma4,250,284 views • 4 months ago
Her mother spent $4,000 to record a birthday song for a thirteen year old girl. It changed the next decade of that girl's life in ways nobody could have predicted. The song was called Friday. Rebecca Black recorded it during school break, just for fun. It sat at around 1,000 views for a month. Then it didn't. It became the most disliked video on all of YouTube. The count was public back then. Everyone could see it. Millions of people had gone out of their way to press a button just to register their contempt for a thirteen year old girl. She was in eighth grade. Kids at school would walk past her singing it in mocking voices. Food was thrown at her. She received threatening messages serious enough that police investigated them. She eventually switched to homeschooling. At nineteen, almost every producer she approached told her they would never work with her. She wrote years later that she had spent most of her teenage years terribly ashamed of herself and afraid of the world. She kept going. Lady Gaga called the song genius. Katy Perry championed her publicly and invited her to appear in her own music video. Friday was covered on Glee. Her 2023 debut album received critical acclaim. In 2025 she released her second album, toured across North America and Europe, and opened for Katy Perry on a world tour. She has turned down every offer to have the video removed from the internet. She said pulling it down would only attach more shame to something she no longer feels ashamed of. The video has been watched over 167 million times.
Lemma the Optimist3,995,708 views • 4 months ago
7 years ago, a high school student in Kansas had his cheek swabbed at a bone marrow donor drive after his teacher told the class she had once saved a stranger’s life by donating. He figured they would never call. Months later they did. He was a perfect match for a 10-year-old girl with a disease so rare only 15 other children in the world had it. He went through surgery not knowing her name. Ten months later he found out it was Laila Anderson, the girl who had become famous for inspiring her favourite hockey team during their championship run while fighting for her own life. Before they met, she wrote him a letter and signed it, “Your best friend, whether you like it or not.” When they finally met, he ran across the room and held her. She told him, “I don’t care if we go to dinner or go to Disney World, I just want to spend time with you.”
Lemma the Optimist4,646,515 views • 4 months ago
A railway company in Japan once ran out of money to pay a stationmaster. So they gave the job to the cat who lived outside the station. She wore a custom made hat, worked for cat food, and saved the entire line. Her name was Tama. She was a calico cat who had spent her days sitting near the entrance of Kishi Station in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, greeting passengers anyway. When the company destaffed the station in 2006 to cut costs, the president visited to discuss what to do about the stray cats living nearby. He looked into Tama's eyes and later said they conveyed a sense of purpose as strong as any of his employees. He made her stationmaster. Within a month passenger numbers rose by seventeen percent. People began travelling from across Japan just to see her. Tourists arrived from other countries. A French documentary crew came to film her. The station was eventually rebuilt in the shape of a cat's face. In her eight years as stationmaster Tama contributed an estimated one billion yen to the local economy. She was promoted four times. She eventually held the title of Honorary President of the railway. The only female in a senior position in the entire company. When she passed away in 2015 over three thousand people attended her funeral. She was given the posthumous title Honorary Eternal Stationmaster and enshrined at a nearby Shinto shrine as a goddess. The position of stationmaster at Kishi Station is still held by a cat today.
Lemma the Optimist3,677,320 views • 4 months ago
For about 18 years, a self-taught truck mechanic named Tim Friede in the United States let cobras, mambas, taipans and rattlesnakes bite him 202 times, and injected himself with their venom 856 times. Once he took two cobra bites within an hour and slipped into a coma. Most experts called him reckless. Then in 2025, scientists took a sample of his blood, isolated the antibodies, and produced something the world has never had: a single antivenom that works against 19 of the planet’s deadliest snakes.
Dr. Lemma2,072,695 views • 2 months ago
In October 2023, an Ethiopian woman boarded a flight home from Beirut for the last time after 25 years of working as a housekeeper. A flight attendant guided her to the front of the plane and pulled back a curtain. Standing there in a pilot’s uniform, holding flowers and a cake, was her son. Minalu Mergiya arrived in Lebanon in the late 1990s at 21 years old. She was there through a war in 2006, through an economic collapse, and through the port explosion in 2020 that shook the entire city. She stayed through all of it because her son Kirubel was back home in Addis Ababa with his grandmother, and she had promised herself he would have every opportunity she never did. She saw him once every five years for one month at a time. When Kirubel was old enough, his mum told him her dream of seeing him become a pilot. He trained at the Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy and graduated in April 2023 at 20 years old. A few months later, he arranged to fly the exact Beirut to Addis Ababa route his mum was booked on. She hadn’t seen him since 2019. She ran straight into him and didn’t let go. He later said he loved the story the video told, not about him, but about his mother’s journey.
Lemma the Optimist3,764,289 views • 4 months ago
15 years ago in Coventry, England, a 45-year-old bank worker named Mary Bale became the target of one of the first massive internet manhunts. On a quiet evening in August 2010, she was captured on CCTV stopping to stroke a friendly tabby cat named Lola. After checking that the coast was clear, she inexplicably picked the cat up by the scruff of the neck and dropped her into a wheelie bin before closing the lid and walking away. Mary was fined £250, plus costs, and banned from keeping animals for five years.
Lemma the Optimist4,910,512 views • 5 months ago
In 2002, Quentin Tarantino, one of the most influential film directors in the world, walked into a secondhand clothing store in Tokyo, Japan. A track was playing over the speakers. He asked the man behind the counter if he could buy the CD right then and there. The man refused. Tarantino offered twice the retail price. The man eventually gave in. The band was The 5.6.7.8's. Two sisters, Yoshiko and Sachiko Fujiyama, had been playing raw 1960s-influenced garage rock in Tokyo since 1986. They had a small but devoted following. Almost nobody outside Japan had heard of them. Within a year they were performing in Kill Bill: Volume 1, one of the most talked about films of 2003, playing to millions of people in cinemas around the world. Their song Woo Hoo, a cover of a 1959 American track they had never considered particularly important, became one of the most recognised opening riffs of a generation. It hit the top thirty in the United Kingdom. It appeared in television commercials around the world. Their tours went from Tokyo to North America, Europe and Australia. Jack White of The White Stripes, who became a fan, helped release their back catalogue through his Third Man Records label in the United States. Interestingly, back home in Japan, almost nothing changed. Their profile there remained almost exactly the same. They are still together. Still playing.
Lemma the Optimist2,868,385 views • 3 months ago
An Irish priest finished a wedding ceremony, pronounced the couple husband and wife, and moved straight on without telling them to kiss. The bride kept saying “first kiss, first kiss” until he finally understood what she was asking for. Father Healy paused at his lectern and said, “You can’t expect an old bachelor to remember something like that.” Then he looked at them and added, “Well, do what you have to do.” He had come out of semi-retirement to officiate because he had been the groom’s family priest his whole life.
Lemma the Optimist3,671,838 views • 4 months ago