Parikshit Balochi via TikTok
A man who posted a TikTok showing a group of passengers on a plane singing the viral children's song "Baby Shark" to a crying child has received over 7 million views as people praised the kindness of strangers.
Parikshit Balochi was flying from his home in Dubai to Albania for a four-day-long backpacking trip on March 10. Before the five-hour flight took off, a child sitting next to him, who Balochi said looked about four years old, started crying. He told Insider that a passenger behind them started quietly murmuring the words to "Baby Shark" and in a bid to comfort the child he decided to do the same.
"I've got no shame because I do public speaking as a radio host. So I started singing out loud and everybody joined in." In the nine-second video, a number of passengers can be seen clapping and singing the lyrics to the song "Baby Shark," before the camera pans to the child, who appears to be crying.
"Baby Shark" is an extremely popular children's song that became the first YouTube video ever to be viewed 10 billion times. The song is a viral sensation, spurring a widespread TikTok dance trend in 2017, and inspiring a full-length movie that is set to be released in 2023.
Balochi, a 33-year-old presenter for a Bollywood radio station in Dubai, has under 5,000 TikTok followers. His previous TikTok videos typically received hundreds of views, but when he posted his "Baby Shark" TikTok, it blew up, receiving 7 million views.
"As it was happening, I thought, 'wow this is a cool moment, I should take out my phone,' so I started recording but only got a few seconds of it," he said, adding that the passengers were singing for about 20 seconds before he started filming.
Before turning off his phone for the flight, Balochi posted the clips on his Instagram story and to TikTok. He said that five hours later when he got off the flight, he had "120 TikTok notifications and a crazy amount of views. I really did not expect it to blow up."
Balochi had added an on-screen caption on the video that read, "Baby shark to the rescue," and a second one that read, "Crying baby on the plane? No problem!"
Commenters under the video seemed to be impressed by the passengers' kindness. One top comment with 19,000 likes said, "all passengers passed the vibe check." Another said, "it literally costs nothing to be a decent person. We need more of this." One comment with 7,000 likes simply said, "humanity," with a wide-eyed emoji.
Parikshit Balochi via TikTok
"There's no doubt that crying babies are irritating on a flight," Balochi told Insider, saying he thinks the video got such a positive reaction because it reminds people that, "You've got to have some tolerance. It's only a child, it's not the end of the world."
Though Balochi has had a TikTok account for around three years, he said that going viral with this clip taught him that "organic" videos, where people spontaneously post something that's happening around them, have the power to do really well on the platform, whereas previously, he thought that TikTok was mainly a "cringefest" for "dancing videos."
"One thing I've really started to like about TikTok is there's something for everyone," he said.
According to Balochi, the child was flying with a man and a woman he assumed were the child's parents. The individuals' identities remain unclear.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.
