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By Lucy Notarantonio
Senior Reporter
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A woman has restored the internet's faith in humanity after using her social media platform to carry out a good deed.
On December 20, Natalie Olsen found an Apple MacBook on an airplane and was determined to find its owner. So she put together a slideshow on TikTok that racked up 24.6 million views.
To Olsen's surprise, the clip reached the owner Madisen Martinez who was reunited with her laptop eight days later.
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Olsen, 25, told Newsweek: "I always try to act in a way that matches what I would hope someone else would do for me if I were in their situation.
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"If I were her, I would have loved to see an updated video from the person who found it."
Perfectly paired with Blondie's "One Way or Another" chorus, the popular clip shows where Olsen found the laptop during a flight from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Atlanta, Georgia.
The device was leaning against the plane wall and near Olsen's feet. She added the following text to the image: "Worry not sis, it's your lucky day," and pointed out she isn't a thief.
The next few slides show the laptop's home screen and Olsen was pleasantly surprised to find out the owner's name.
She told Newsweek: "I did open up the laptop to see if there were any clues about ownership, but I never went beyond the lock screen. Fortunately for me, she had her first name, last name, and a photo included in her login prompt. I got pretty lucky to have seen this at all though, since her MacBook had low power at that point and could've died any minute."
After getting off the plane, Olsen rushed to the Delta Air Lines, Inc. gate and handed over the laptop.
"I was heading home for a busy holiday and still had another leg of my flight, I didn't want to take on the liability of trying to return the MacBook to Madisen myself for fear of accidentally breaking it or being accused of theft," she explained.
Within 24 hours of posting the initial video, Olsen was notified that Martinez had indeed seen the snaps.
"By the time I woke up the next morning, I actually had a message from Madisen on my Instagram account that read "Natalie!!! Thank you so much for posting about my laptop. I'm definitely relieved to have seen that this morning and am trying to get in touch with Delta about where it ended up!" Olsen said.
Receiving the laptop was far from simple and the owner wasn't reunited with her device until December 28.
Speaking about the power of the internet, Olsen said: "I definitely did not expect for the videos to go so viral. I had been a longtime TikTok scroller, but I had only learned how to edit and post the first video on my page two days prior to the "Madisen's Laptop Saga" going viral."
Newsweek discussed the video that has 1.7 million likes with Drake Castañeda, who is part of the media relations team at Delta Air Lines.
"The primary encouragement to customers remains keeping close contact with personal items while traveling—especially those of value—and is why we've long included reminders in flight attendant announcements to gather all personal items upon final descent. We encourage customers to alert a Delta representative or file a claim on our website as soon as possible to help us work to find the missing item left behind," he said.
So far, the video has racked up over 4,000 comments.
"As a fool who has left expensive electronics on a flight, thank you for your act of kindness, it seriously means the world to be reunited!" said one comment.
Another said: "This is so so wholesome."
"You're an angel," said a third comment.
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