There is no greater gesture to offer than showing kindness to a stranger or someone in need.
Justin “Glojays” Keith, a Little Rock Arkansas native and now Atlanta resident has discovered that not all people are kind. So, he sets out to prove himself wrong through his social experiments. His premise is that even when no one is watching that people will give from the kindness of their hearts. But to his surprise, people disappoint him time after time. Glojays also uses his heart and compassion to engage with and give to the homeless. His kind gestures have made him a social media personality/influencer.
There are very few gems that come along that focus on giving and not receiving. He is one of those gems. Here is the conversation I had with Glojays.
You are doing phenomenal things when you perform social experiments in your area. You inspire, uplift, and bless people with kind words and money. Tell everyone what a social experiment is and how you came up with that idea.
A social experiment is basically when you go out in public and test people with real-life scenarios. And for instance, with me, some of mine are: like I say, I forgot my wallet, or can I borrow a dollar, or just basically saying I just don’t have it, like I don’t have the money or whatever the case may be and I see how people react. And of course, I have a hidden camera so I can see people’s real-life reactions. Of course, nowadays, a lot of people are mean, and being nice is rare. So, I wanted to bring more awareness to what’s really going on and make a change.
So basically, what I’ll do is I’ll just go out to a group of people and I’ll say, “I don’t have my wallet, can you give me a dollar so I can pay for this or can you get me a bottle of water?” Or whatever the case may be, and most people say “no.” And the one person that says “yes” I reward them for their kindness, because kind gestures nowadays, I feel should be rewarded because they’re so rare. So, I want to help them push what they’re doing. So, I’ll pay for groceries, I might give you $500, I might give you $200, you just will never know. I do little things like that just to show my appreciation for people being nice.
What do you think it is about you that makes you care so much about people, and that inspires you to be a giver?
That’s a good question. I’ve always been a giver, honestly and truly, ever since I was a kid. Like for Christmas and on my birthday, I would say, I would like rather just go and bless somebody else. With the money I would get, I would most likely go hand it to a homeless person. Even if I don’t have it, let’s say didn’t have any money at all, I still would give my last to people; it’s just in me. And I don’t know, why specifically, why I’m like that but I’ve always been that way. Like, I can’t take from people. I’m a giver but I can’t receive. Like it’s really hard for me to do anything for free. Like even my mom, if she does something for me, I just want to pay her. My mom just actually came in town, and like she found money in my pockets and I just told her to keep it. It’s just in me. That’s what I do.
Tell us a little about yourself; the man behind Glojays.
So, me as a person, I’m 22 years old now. I moved to Atlanta at the end of 2019, and at first, I was working at Mercedes Benz of Buckhead. Like, I had a job, I had a good career. And I’ve always known that I wanted to be a social media personality. And I’ve been working, and it took me about 10 years to blow up. I was doing skits and all types of videos before I blew up, but it never really took off. And I’ll tell you, honestly, the reason why it didn’t take off was that I wasn’t being myself. I would be on the camera being someone I wasn’t. I’ll give you an example, like, I would be on the camera trying to make jokes that just wasn’t me, or I’d try to not talk like myself, or something along those lines, and it didn’t blow up for me until I was finally myself. Like, I just got behind the camera and I was authentic to myself.
I went viral one time, and I quit my job because I knew I could do this again. And of course, I had savings to base my life off of. I wasn’t getting paid for social media yet when I quit; I was just like we’re going to just figure this out. So, I jumped off the bridge and did it. And it just worked out for me. I moved from Little Rock, Arkansas; it was really random. I just dropped out of college and moved to Atlanta. I didn’t have any family here and I didn’t know anybody, but something in me was like take the risk. So, I took the risk. I wiggled my way into the dealership job through LinkedIn and worked there 2 years, I just recently quit 4 months ago. And I’ve just been a full-time entrepreneur on social media since, and now, TikTok is at one million followers, Instagram is at 250,000 plus, so it’s working.
Where did your brand name, Glojays come from? And tell us about your company?
So, I used to play X-box with the rapper, Chief Keef, way back. His whole click was called Glo Gang. And my name was Justin and he said it, “Gojays.” I don’t know where it came from but he said it and I stuck with it; It’s my brand name. It’s catchy and it’s short.
So, if you watch my content, I do homeless videos. So, I started a 501c3, a nonprofit to basically power that. So, of course, I get donations or whatnot to help the homeless. I’ve gotten 3 or 4 people off the street so far. So basically, I just interview them. My fanbase gets millions of views, so they want to help these people and get them off the streets. And with the money that’s donated, I would take and use whatever to get them off the street. But a quick downside to that is I realized that working with homeless people, a lot of them are not honest. They will tell me these stories that I come to find out are not true. So, I’ve had a lot of instances of that. So, I really backed off of doing the homeless population for now because everything comes to the surface. These videos are getting millions of views and someone’s going to come and tell me what happened for real.
You have over one million followers across all your social media platforms. For those who are struggling to grow their following, what advice can you give them?
If you’re struggling to grow your platform, the first thing to me is quality and consistency. Well, consistency, you know that. But when I say quality, if you go to my page without clicking the videos, you’ll see every video on my feed, you can see what’s going on without even watching it. You can see, like, okay he’s interacting with this person. It’s really clear and I make it very straight and to the point. There’s no second in my video where there is silence. I make sure there’s no empty space. And you gotta make sure you keep people entertained. Editing is crucial, how you edit your video is everything. I’ve had videos that weren’t even that good but the way I edited and chopped it up so good, it became good just off of that. And consistency, I don’t say you have to post every day. But you do have to stay in your following’s face. Another thing, keep it fresh. If you do the same thing all the time, eventually people will get tired of you and not watch your videos anymore. But with me, I switch it up. I might do a homeless video today, a skit tomorrow, or I might do a social experiment the next day. And I might just randomly give away something the next. It’s just keeping people on their toes.
I find your social experiments on homeless people eye-opening and heart-warming. When you hear their stories, how does it impact you mentally and emotionally?
At first, it was extremely sad, honestly and truthfully. So, it opened a new light for me. It humbled me in a different way. Like, let’s say we have a bad day, it could always be worse. And like in my videos, it’s a prime example of what it means when people say, “It could always be worse.” So, it gave me a different motive or push t help the people. But now since I’ve been doing it for so long and I see the good and the bad of it, the stories don’t make me as sad now. And let’s say this, I really don’t believe everyone but I do believe in second chances. That’s the biggest thing for me. It’s like, I hear you and I hope you’re telling me the truth. That’s how I feel about it.
You often ask for life advice from homeless people. What’s the best advice you’ve received?
One of the best is, here you go, live more so for yourself. He said, “Live for you.”
The reason why he was homeless was that he was a giver too. And he said, “I gave and gave and gave and gave until I could not give anymore.” He said, “Now, I’m homeless and I gave to all these people, and now I don’t have anything, and those same people don’t have anything for me.”
So, it’s great to be a giver but be very aware when you’re doing it. You have to pay attention and see the people who are genuinely around you and the people who are around you for just what you can do for them. Because there are a lot of people around just for what I can do for them. That advice really stuck with me personally.
What message would you like to give to those who look down on the homeless?
It could always be you. A lot of these homeless people had wives, kids, cars, and big houses; they had everything and lost it. Even a homeless man told me he used to look down on homeless people until he lost everything and became homeless. Life humbled him. So, it’s like, you gotta be humble because it could always be you at any given second, for sure.
During your experiments when you ask for a dollar, gas, or a soda from people, what is surprising about some of the negative responses you get when you ask for help?
It surprises me when people tell me they don’t have a dollar. It’s like, you’re walking into a store, you have a dollar. Even if you don’t readily have a dollar, you can ask me if I want something to eat or is there something I can help you with? There’s a lot of other things you can do. You don’t readily have to have a dollar in your pocket but if you go in your car, you have four quarters; I promise you do. I know you do. It’s like people’s lack of effort is not caring at all. It just shows me like, “Put yourself in their shoes.” I’m not one who interviews and don’t put myself in their shoes.
What message would you like to leave with people based on your social experiments?
Being nice can go a long way. It’s such a small gesture. One person bought me a water bottle and got their $400 groceries paid for. Like, you never know what could happen or whose testing you. I like testing people just to see what they do. Me and my team are disappointed when people say, “no.” Like, it cost little to nothing to be nice; you giving me a dollar does not hurt you. It doesn’t.
What’s next for you?
Can’t say much, I’ll just say TV. Yeah, social media is cool but we’re going to a bigger platform.
You can follow Glojays by clicking these links:
TikTok │Instagram │ YouTube │Twitter
To donate or reach Glojays, contact his manager here: Gutta TV
Writer, Debbie Stokes is a contributing writer. You can follow her on Instagram @iamdebbiestokes
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