TikTok user @racheltaughtme has sparked something of a mystery-solving exercise with a recent video showing someone's childhood portraits for sale at a thrift store.
The video, which has hundreds of thousands of views at this point, was shot at the Rogers Road location of the Value Village thrift store in Toronto, Canada. Jinkies, that information might be useful for solving this mystery, gang!
In the clip, Rachel shows viewers six childhood portraits of the same boy at various ages as they sit up on the shelf for sale. The text overlay on the video reads "Who's son is this" followed by some crying emojis. Under that, she wrote "Your parents donated all your photos, man."
Her caption? "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation to all this."
Take a look.
To be clear, Rachel isn't an "influencer" or "personality" on TikTok - but that didn't stop the 5 second clip from getting big attention. People seemed compelled by the mystery.
Who is the little boy?
Why are the childhood portraits at a thrift shop?
How did they get there?
The post turned into a writing exercise for some people who tossed some potential plots around in the comments. They were pretty much all traumatic.
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
While others claimed to have a personal connection to the kid in the pictures.
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
Others weren't as interested in the story that got those childhood portraits into the thrift shop - but they loved the idea of what might happen next.
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
And of course - the obvious, timely, and necessary joke:
@racheltaughtme/TikTok
Rachel didn't set out to spark an internet-wide mystery, but that's what has happened. We don't have answers, but people are hoping the video eventually brings the boy or his family forward.
Until then, this remains an Unsolved Mystery.
**cue the creepy theme music**
@hebagowayed/Bluesky
@waitmanwbeorn/X
@eighthoften/Bluesky 
@antigonesdream/Bluesky 
A1