You’d think Walmart was a thrift store, given the family photos this woman found in the picture frame aisle.
When shopping for picture frames, there will sometimes be a stock photo of a family, person, or pet in the frame to show what the frame would look like with an actual picture in it. It’s a common practice.
But this woman noticed that one of the frames in Walmart’s aisles looked a bit unusual.
“These pictures were like oddly specific and you don’t see these types of pictures when you look inside of frame typically,” says Jasmine Austin (@paintingandallthatjas), an art teacher and artist based in Dallas, TX, in a viral TikTok video.
When she flips the camera around, viewers see a dark brown frame filled with family photos of a Black family.
“What I figured is, somebody done left their family photo in the store. Lord, they left it in the store,” Jas says. “Whose folks is these?”
The frame clearly wasn’t a piece of merchandise because there was no stage on the back of it like the rest of the frames, and it didn’t have a barcode or a price tag.
“This was in somebody’s house. And y’all left y’all pictures in the store?” Jas questions.
There are at least half a dozen yellowed photos in the frame including one of a man holding a rabbit and another of a couple sitting with two beers.
The best part of the video, however, is the backstories that Jas makes up for each photo.
In the one where a man is chilling on a living room chair, she says that it’s Uncle Leroy from Mississippi who just stopped by to say “hey.” In another, with a group of women, Jas says it’s the first-ever baby shower in the backyard. And the one with a man holding up a liquor bottle? Jas speculates that the photo was taken during the New Year’s Eve turn-up.
It is unclear how the filled picture frame could have ended up in the Walmart aisle. Maybe someone took the frame with them to try to find another one in the same size or to find frames for the individual photos. Maybe it’s a prank by the manufacturer (unlikely).
While people urged Jas to buy the frame and try to find the family, she said she didn’t do that. First, because the frame wasn’t for sale so she couldn’t buy it, and second because she didn’t want the person to go back looking for it and not be able to find it.
If the family it belongs to is watching (or reading), the frame is located at a Dallas Walmart. Jas urges viewers to find the family, as did many viewers in the comments.
@paintingandallthatjas Who folks are these?
♬ original sound – Jas
The video has more than 700,000 views and more than 4,000 comments as of Wednesday morning.
“Oh lawd! Aunt Pearl looking for that frame right now!” a person guessed.
“Llaawwddddd she done gave them names and situation,” a commenter said.
“You named them and all They’re your family now,” another wrote.
Jas told the Daily Dot in an Instagram direct message that while several people have claimed it was their family, few of them seemed to be true.
“People said I should’ve taken it with me or taken it to customer service but I figured if they remembered that they left it I’d want it to be in the exact same spot,” she said. “A few people have messaged me saying that it was their family. Some seemed serious & others were obviously playing but no other updates outside of that.”
