KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

Most animal shelters admit it's easier to get dogs adopted than cats.

Wayside Waifs in Kansas City did something this week that not only got international attention but also found several felines a forever home.

Sometimes you really have to think outside of the box to get animals adopted or, in this case, take to social media.

Wayside Waifs posted a lighthearted video on TikTok with the simple intention of showing off some of their cats up for adoption.

The simple video got more than one million views. Thanks to that video, all but two of the cats were adopted.

"It was actually something that one of our feline care technicians thought of. What kind of animal likes people? What kind of animal would wanna snuggle with the other kittens?” Casey Waugh with Wayside Waifs said.

The goal was to get these shelter cats some attention. They had no idea just how much response they’d get.

"The dogs are sometimes easier, you know, to make TikToks about things like that, but we’ve got lots of different personalities,” Humane Educator Amy Putman said.

Those personalities are now a worldwide hit.

"We have comments from Brazil and the Philippines and the UK, all these amazing places," Waugh said.

Wayside Waifs said they still have plenty of animals to adopt. They’ll be looking to come up with more fun ways to get that done in their next video.

The sun has just risen over the mountains surrounding Maple Hill Cemetery in Dorset, Vermont, giving the headstones here a kind of warmth that only comes in late fall.

Some of these graves date back to the 1700s, and many are worn and covered in moss, unreadable and unrecognizable to most people who come here to visit loved ones.

But amidst the quiet, the sounds of scrubbing can be heard. Caitlin Abrams has just gotten to work.

"There's no shortcuts to any of this," Abrams said as she pumped the small handheld pressure washer she used to keep the marble stones wet.

Abrams is on a mission to restore old headstones.

After she scrapes and scrubs, she then covers the headstone in a restorative solution used by conservationists at Arlington National Cemetery. The labors of her work often take time to appreciate, as the cleaning solution slowly brightens up over the course of weeks and months.

"I like cleaning the ones you can't read because it feels like you're giving that person their name back and a piece of their story back," she said.

But while she is often out in these cemeteries alone, Abrams has amassed a massive following on the internet.

This 35-year-old, who once mocked TikTok, now has 1.8 million followers on the platform. She's known as "Manic Pixie Mom," and her videos have been viewed around the world.

"The nature of the [TikTok] algorithm is that someone might come across my video without being a follower and might not be interested in gravestones and now they are," she added.

But for Abrams, this isn't just about cleaning up some old headstones. In each video, she narrates a story about the life of the person whose headstone she's cleaning, bringing them back to life for the first time in centuries.

Abrams, a mother of two young kids herself, is drawn toward the stories of headstones belonging to children.

"It puts into perspective the difficulty of 19th and 18th-century life, for a lot of families, one disease would wipe out all five children in a matter of days or weeks," Abrams said.

Abrams sees each TikTok video as an opportunity to teach younger generations about the past.

"I do feel like I'm giving them a side of history you don't get in school," she said.

DENVER — A viral TikTok video of a Denver Japanese restaurant created chaos, challenges, and changes for the small business.

In 1996, Gaku Homma opened Domo Japanese Country Restaurant. His restaurant provides a unique dining experience rich in flavor and culture that has attracted loyal customers over the last 25 years. Clients have the choice of sitting inside surrounded by Japanese décor or outside in a traditional Japanese garden.

The locally owned business became a Denver staple over the years, and in 2021, Zagat ranked the restaurant as one of the top five Japanese restaurants in the U.S.

But nothing prepared the business owner and staff for the power and impact of social media.

In July, a customer recorded a TikTok video restaurant. It was less than a minute long and without narration, but that's all people needed. In just one day, the video received hundreds of thousands of views.

"After it went viral, we definitely just got inundated with customers, almost instantaneously, so there was a big shift in our normal clientele," said Chef Koichi Ninomiya.

He said an employee pulled up the video, and it had more than half a million views in one day.

For several days, people lined up outside the restaurant before the doors opened. The line was so long it reached an apartment complex more than half a block from the entrance.

Ninomiya called the video a "blessing and a curse."

"It's nice to have people coming in, but at the same time, it's just a little bit too much for us to handle as a staff, and as a whole, we are not equipped with enough staff to handle the demand," Ninomiya said.

The business is home to many returning clients who went from experiencing a 30-minute maximum wait time to waits of three hours or more.

"It was busy to the point where we had to turn away customers," Ninomiya said.

Homma, the owner of the restaurant, said customers grew frustrated with the wait time.

A Facebook post on the restaurant's page stated that customers repeated insults and shouted hateful words at other people patiently waiting. Police were called several times to keep outbursts from escalating.

"There have been some disgruntled people," Ninomiya said.

Ninomiya said trying to predict how much food to prepare and order became difficult.

Homma was overwhelmed by the boost in business and closed for two weeks to prepare and set guidelines. He decided to scale back from seven days a week to three days a week and limited the seating capacity to keep people safe during the pandemic.

"We are still busy. We hit our capacity almost every night on those three nights," Ninomiya said.

Ninomiya estimates he's putting out 300 plates a day, and that doesn't include appetizers for the tables.

A customer waiting to be seated with her friends was in town visiting Denver and said a friend recommended dining at Domo. She said she typically searches hashtags on TikTok to find new restaurants and cool places to visit.

"It highlights the food; it highlights the ambiance," she said. "A lot of the time, it's the hidden gems that don't spend a lot of money on marketing, so you just get to see these real authentic type places, too."

Ninomiya stressed they're grateful for the extra business and simply asked for patience and understanding. He said, like most restaurants, they're short-staffed.

"We do want to serve everybody. You just have to come early, put your name down, be patient, and try not to get frustrated with us, and we will do the best we can," Ninomiya said.

Signs outside the restaurant now warn people about the extended wait time and remind customers that every dish is cooked with care.

This story was originally published by Adi Guajardo on Scripps station KMGH in Denver.