10 Random Life Affirming Videos Guaranteed to Make You Weep the Big Fat Good Tears

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | April 16, 2013 |

It’s a weird day here, as it often is when you’re writing for a pop culture site the day after a tragedy. We’re in an awkward position of wanting to acknowledge the events and talk about them (and TK’s piece strikes the perfect note), as well as provide a space to get away from the events, escape from news coverage for a few moments, and read about something trivial, like movies, or television, or the fact that Justin Bieber wrote in the guestbook for the Anne Frank house that he hoped Frank would’ve been a “Belieber.”

All of which is to say, I had no idea what write about today. Instead, I spent my time on YouTube, where I ended up challenging myself to find a video that would elicit tears. But not the super sad, OHMYGOD Sarah Mclaughlin PETA commercial tears or Blossom in Beaches bawl-your-face-off tears, but the happy, life affirming, wistful, or sweet tears brought on by hope and loss and sacrifice and the amazingness of people.

What I’m saying is, I put together a collection of videos designed to make you cry, damnit. And I fully goddamn guarantee that if you watch all ten of these, at least one of them will do the trick. Most of you won’t make it past the first video because you are WEAK.

Enjoy.

An Inspirational Commencement Speech from a Dying College Professor. If you don’t have the time to watch all three and a half minutes, DO jump to around the 3:15 mark which will punch every goose bump on your body.