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Fort Wayne - 2025
The video: Michele Crider is a Fort Wayne resident who worked as a server at the Dash-In in downtown Fort Wayne. On a lunch shift, two customers left her no tip; in place of one, the check carried a note, "I don't tip fags". Crider told the story in a video, and the video went viral. A GoFundMe under the name "Lets give Michele the tip she deserved!!" was raised on her behalf, its text noting she was raising her son and working toward his tuition. The episode is this section's clearest early document of the form's social mechanics in Fort Wayne: an insult on a receipt, answered by a phone camera, and the audience, not the restaurant, settling the account.
The audience: Under the name Local Lezbian, Crider built that moment into a following counted, by Input Fort Wayne, at 1.7 million on TikTok, as reported in September 2025. The figure comes from a local publication, not her own profile, which is why she stands in this section at full size. Her subject, in the videos the record describes, remained the city itself and the life of a queer Fort Wayne server and mother inside it.
The host: On 26 September 2025 the scene she belonged to formalized itself, and she was at its center: Michele Crider hosted the inaugural Creative Awards at the Local Archive (see the awards entry below), and used her closing speech, as Input Fort Wayne reported it, to emphasize how impactful creatives with large followings or access to resources are in Fort Wayne. The server who had been tipped in slurs by two men at lunch was, by the fall of 2025, the master of ceremonies of her city's creative class, at 1.7 million followers. The record does not need to add anything to that arc.
Sources:
- Input Fort Wayne, "The inaugural Creative Awards honors creative talents in Fort Wayne", 30 Sept 2025: known online as Local Lezbian, a following of 1.7 million on TikTok, host of the awards, the closing speech.
- GoFundMe, "Lets give Michele the tip she deserved!!" (Will Certain): Fort Wayne resident, Dash-In server, the note in place of a tip, the video gone viral.
- Meaws, coverage of the viral video: Crider's account of the lunch shift at the Dash-In restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana.