Grieving Father’s Emotional Plea to Facebook

Feb. 6, 2014— -- John Berlin exhaled and shook before speaking.

“You ever do something crazy because you just don’t know what to do anymore?” the Missouri resident said, the start of his appeal to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

As part of the social networking site’s 10th birthday, Facebook has allowed users to take a look back with one-minute films – collages of user highlights and photos.

Berlin wanted to see his son Jesse’s Lookback video.

But Jesse died in 2012 at age 21.

Berlin was unsuccessful in cracking the password on his son’s account. So Berlin stood in front of his webcam, began talking, holding back tears, punching his fist as he struggled to speak.

“All we wanna do is see his movie, that’s it. I don’t even need to get on his account,” Berlin said.

“Everybody does these things and they go viral.... That’s all I’m trying to do.”

After Berlin posted the video to YouTube Wednesday, his friends started sharing it, followed by people who'd never met him. More than 700,000 people watched the video in its first 24 hours online.

Eventually, Berlin got a response.

“It worked,” Berlin wrote on his Facebook page. “I was just contacted by FB by phone and they’re going to make a vid just for us.”