I have to admit, I got a little misty eyed when I watched the video about a kid who started his own cardboard arcade in his dad’s auto shop.
Everything about this is awesome. There really is no other way to describe it.
Caine Monroy, a nine-year-old from Los Angeles has a pretty big obsession with arcades. So, when he spent last summer at his dad’s garage, he used his time to build a functioning cardboard arcade, complete with prizes and a business model.
Opening the arcade on the weekends, Caine sells a small amount of turns at the games for a dollar or Fun Passes (500 games) for $2.
Unfortunately, Caine didn’t see any business until Nirvan Mullick came along and bought a Fun Pass. After returning to play the games, Mullick talked to Caine’s dad about doing a film on the arcade.
That’s when everything happened. Mullick arranged for a meetup, posting events on Facebook and Hidden LA asking people to come to the arcade. The meetup made it to the front page of Reddit.
On October 2 last year, the internet got together and set up a surprise party for Caine at his arcade while his dad took him out for lunch. When they returned it was to a flash mob shouting “We want to play.”
Nirvan posted the film on Vimeo and even has a link to a scholarship fund on cainesarcade.com which has reached $81,238 out of $100,000.
