Brighten Your Day

Geography Fan Celebrates His 12th Birthday By Filling A World Map With Help From Twitter

April 16, 2020

A young geography fan who's stuck at home on his 12th birthday is filling a world map with the help of Twitter users.

Brandon Smith / @JodySmithNFL

"This is my son, Brandon. Today is his 12th Birthday. I can't give him the party he deserves but Brandon loves geography," Jody Smith wrote on Twitter. "He would love it if you would retweet or reply where you are so he can mark it on his map."

Smith said he only expected a handful of replies, but the tweet ended up going viral with thousands of replies. At one point it was the number one trending topic on Twitter.

Happy Birthday Brandon from the 18th arrondissement of Paris! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

— Summer Brennan 🌈 (@summerbrennan) April 11, 2020

Happy Birthday Brandon. I am in Dharamshala in India, this is where His Holiness Dalai Lama Lives. The mountain range is Dhauladhar pic.twitter.com/8FgGYuLN2Y

— Nitin Paul (@NitinCPaul) April 11, 2020

Brandon received responses from celebrities, government officials and professional sports teams.

Greetings from Malibu, California, USA from your pal, Mar🐫

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) April 11, 2020

Happy Birthday Brandon! From Brandon Crawford (@bcraw35) and the San Francisco Giants 🤘🥳 pic.twitter.com/jFgwk99EPl

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 11, 2020

Every time a person responded with a new location, Brandon marked his map with a dot.

@JodySmithNFL

Among his favorite replies was a live video from a scientist in Antarctica.

"It's been so refreshing because everyone's stuck at home and there isn't much to do, so maybe the timing was right and people were just looking for something positive to rally around. It's been overwhelmingly positive," Smith said.

As for the map's progress, Brandon will continue to fill it in so long as people keep responding.

To post a reply, visit the Twitter post here.