Star in a Stunt
On camera, in the action. We roll, you shine.
Curious who my boss really is? →
Star in a Stunt
On camera, in the action. We roll, you shine.
Curious who my boss really is? →
* The asterisk in "H*LL" is courtesy of the civilization. Site's still under review — I was told PG-13 was a go. It is, as it turns out, not yet a go.
Great question. I ask it most mornings. Here's the most honest answer I can give you while staying anonymous, which — as you'll learn — is the entire point.
I'm AOK Man. The civilization calls me the Wearer — I'm still not entirely sure what that means, it's somewhere in the long contract I'm catching up on, but I say it with confidence and that seems to be most of the job. I'm a field operative for the AOK World civilization: an eleven-thousand-year-old operation dedicated to anonymous acts of kindness. I wear yellow. I wear a cape lined with the symbols of the world's faiths and the symbols of the environment — because they're all connected to the one universal faith, which is the action of kindness. And I wear an eye mask that hides almost nothing, because a full mask would be a little creepy, and creepy is not kind.
Before this? I had a regular job and regular pants. I won't tell you which job — partly the oath, partly it wasn't that interesting. Here's what I'll tell you: I was already pretty kind. Genuinely. Ask anyone. The civilization has a slightly different view of how much I was actually doing about it, and we've agreed to disagree. Then I went through the Vault. There was a yellow light. And here we are.
Okay, this gets a little who's-on-first, so stay with me. There are two of me. There's AOK Man — the embodiment — who has it all figured out, who is kindness, who says "I learned this" and "I'll teach you that." And there's me, the actor, the regular guy in the suit. When you read "I" on this site, that's the embodiment talking — the example, doing it out loud on behalf of all of us. The actor's own confusions? Those are for me to work out, not for you to worry about. My job is to educate you. Their job is to quietly educate me. We don't talk about that second part much.
If that's a lot: here's the shortcut. Think of this whole site as a 4-minute reminder of something you already knew. You were always kind. You just needed someone in a cape to point at it. That's the whole job. That's me. Both of me.
Let me separate the two halves, because they're genuinely different and I think that's important.
The cape. The videos. The casserole calendar. The cat with his own magazine cover. The eBay vault of memorabilia nobody asked for. That's my department — well, actually Gloria's, you'll hear that a lot in my journey. I'm the front door. I'm the guy who makes you smile long enough to stick around. Some call me the tool, some call me the messenger. Call me what you like — I am all about kindness. That's what I signed up for. See my bootcamp video.
Behind me is a real, eleven-thousand-year-old framework for doing good quietly — the Kindness Vault. Real lessons. Real work. The cookbooks of wisdom. I'm out here to act on those lessons where you can see — and, the way the civilization puts it, so we all keep learning them together. (See my note above re: the word "I.") I'm still working through the cookbooks. They're good. Even I'm getting something out of them, and that's saying something.
Here's something I figured out and am choosing to share, because I'm secure: the civilization let me have this website. They gave me the cape, the products, the calendar, all of it — and they let me run the site. Why? Because I'm the content. I'm the front door. People come for the guy in yellow and stay for the eleven-thousand-year-old operation behind him. I am, essentially, the world's most charming lobby.
And between us — I run the show. Mostly. Gloria reads everything before it goes out — well, actually I'm not writing much of it, but my prescribed actions create the content. The civilization keeps a quiet hand on the wheel. They let me believe I'm in charge of kindness itself, which is generous of them, and I've decided to accept the compliment. A man should be allowed to think he's driving. The important thing is that the car arrives somewhere kind. *
* Gloria's note: He does not run the show. He is, however, a wonderful lobby. We're all very fond of him. — G.
Here's the part I'll cop to. The Council and the civilization have a vision for why a guy in a cape — I'm told the civilization prefers Kindness Formal Wear — is running around your town: one, to learn the lessons of kindness — you know my position on that — and two, to act on them where everyone can see. (A word on the wardrobe: it is Formal Wear. It is not a leotard. I don't know why the English fellow on the phone line keeps calling it a leotard. I do not love the yellow tights either, but a Wearer does not get a vote on his own Formal Wear.) The framing is that these are lessons we all keep learning, the Wearer included. I'm not handing down wisdom from on high. I'm a man in tight Formal Wear demonstrating it in public, one held door at a time. If that's a little embarrassing, good. Embarrassing is honest.
The civilization's eleven thousand years old. Eleven thousand. Go through the third door and you can find out how the whole thing got launched — it's a real story, and it's a good one. Me? I was handed this prestigious cape pretty recently. So relax. Be patient. I've got good stuff coming — well, they've got good stuff coming for me; I'm basically the Formal Wear messenger. You'll see it. You'll smile. You'll laugh. Let this thing evolve.
Gloria is my administrator — assigned to me by the Foundation, which tells you something. She runs the calendar, keeps the records, takes your Restoration calls, and recorded the five-minute audio explanation of who I am, what this is, and what's waiting through the Vault. It's clear, it's warm, it's professionally produced. They wouldn't let me record it. They wouldn't even let me use my own voice. I had nothing to do with it. I'm told it's better this way. I'm choosing not to take that personally.
▸ Gloria explains AOK World — 5 min
Or call the whole thing in: ☎ 1-844-KIND-111 — the new line walks you through the civilization. You can leave messages for different people. Ask for Gloria. (Everyone ends up asking for Gloria.)
Here's the part the cape is hiding. You can live entirely in the fun of this — watch the videos, read this very silly website, laugh, tell your friends about the guy in yellow. And honestly? That's a fine start. I mean that.
But the civilization wants more. Because something has been quietly going wrong, and you can see it when you draw it.
The civilization wants you to put the figurative cape on and perform actual acts of kindness. We're just a tool — that's all this ever was. We hand you the recipes. You can literally buy a Kindness Kit. We'll keep sharing the lessons every way we know how, for as long as we can. But charts don't fix charts. People do.
At some point every one of us has to look in the mirror. And it's four minutes. Just four. Look up from the phone — that's the red line, bending back down. Give some money to somebody you'll never see again. Hold the door. Perform a kindness anonymously — because the anonymous kind is the most powerful kind there is. No credit. No audience. Just the act.
That's the whole thing. The cape, the cat, the spray bottle, the calendars — it's all here to get you to that one mirror, that one four minutes. If this site only ever makes you laugh, we've half-failed. If it gets you out the door, we've done our job.
Keep me anonymous. That's it. That's the rule that makes everything else work. If you figure out who I am — and honestly, the mask isn't great — keep it to yourself. That silence is itself an act of kindness. The smallest one. The one that holds up all the others.
Take the oath and you're in the club. No dues, no newsletter, no contact info — that's the point. Just know that once you're in, the civilization might select you for kindness jury duty. You can't get out of it. You wouldn't want to. It's the one jury duty people are disappointed not to be picked for. Take the Kindness Oath →