An innocuous social media check-in from Elmo earlier this week has spawned an outpouring of grief and cynicism from users on X, formerly Twitter. The dozens of brands that joined in on the online conversation, though, have taken a sunnier approach to Elmo’s kindhearted inquiry. 

Almost immediately after the X account for the beloved “Sesame Street” character shared a post reading, “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” on Monday morning, hundreds of X users began unloading their anxieties and sorrows onto the three-year-old fuzzy red monster. “I’m at my lowest. Thanks for asking,” one user wrote, while another replied, “Elmo I just got laid off.” 

One user’s response succinctly sums up the general vibe across the more than 17,000 comments Elmo’s post has since received: “Not good, Elmo. Not good.”

“Our focus on emotional wellbeing is woven into the fabric of our work at Sesame Workshop, and our overall social media strategy is to reach people where they are with the content and messages they may need from us at that time,” Samantha Maltin, executive VP and chief marketing and brand officer of Sesame Workshop, wrote in an email. “While we knew people would respond, we really didn’t fully anticipate the resonance of the question in this moment.”

As the post started racking up thousands of comments and millions of views (Elmo’s initial X post has been viewed more than 200 million times as of this writing), many brands took notice of the online momentum it was gaining and have since shared their own emotional states with Elmo. Brands such as Sour Patch Kids, Ritz and Domino’s Pizza U.K. echoed the morose responses flooding the comment section in their replies to Elmo.

A response from the account for the multiplayer game Among Us that simply reads “suffering” currently sits as the top comment on Elmo’s post with 18,000 likes and over 860,000 views.

Others, including Chipotle, Dunkin’ and Oreo, took a lighter approach to Elmo’s check-in and tied the question back to their brand or products, with Oreo posting “ran out of milk. do the math,” Dunkin’ admitting it “could honestly use an iced coffee,” and Chipotle asking Elmo what his order is at the restaurant. Shake Shack commented on the depressing nature of the comments section as a whole with its response: “Some of these replies could benefit from a sweet treat.”

Chili’s leveraged Elmo’s post as an opportunity to take stock of the well-being of its own 428,000 followers on X, sharing a post reading, “chili’s checking in–how are we doing.” And when one commenter wrote, “I’m losing all my sanity chili’s,” the brand replied “a triple dipper might be helpful.” 

Sesame Workshop has since extended Elmo’s question to the show’s other social media accounts, including TikTok and Instagram. A number of brands raced to the comment section when the “Sesame Street” account uploaded its TikTok video on Wednesday, with Duolingo writing, “well first off everyone thinks I’m a chicken” and Target commenting, “i’m at my limit elmo.” 

The Detroit Lions nodded to their loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, replying, “We were a lot better this time last week, Elmo 😔.”

Elmo’s query went viral on TikTok, too, receiving 2.6 million views and over 26,000 replies. And when Sesame Workshop uploaded the same video to Instagram on Thursday, it amassed over 2,300 likes in only an hour and as of this writing has climbed to over 53,000 total likes. Several of the Reel’s 3,000-plus comments are from brands including Old Navy, Toys R Us and United Airlines. Even the Transportation Security Administration got involved, replying, “Elmo, you doing okay little buddy? You seemed really tired at the airport yesterday so we’re just checking in ❤️.” 

Sesame Workshop chose to extend Elmo’s wellness check to additional social media platforms because of “the enormous response Elmo’s simple tweet exposed,” Maltin said. “We know there’s a growing mental health crisis today … [and] because of that, emotional wellbeing is more important than ever, and we knew we needed to address that.”

Look back: How Sesame Workshop navigates cultural moments

In response to the wave of comments Elmo’s post received on X, the account made a follow-up post just over 24 hours later that reads in part, “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing.” Another wave of brands that hadn’t responded to Elmo’s initial inquiry jumped onto his follow-up post, with Xbox, Spotify, NASA and several others thanking him for checking in.

Merriam-Webster simply replied with a link to the dictionary entry for the word “friend” on its website, and Verizon let Elmo know “we’re here if you ever need to call. or text. ❤️.”

Even President Joe Biden chimed in and thanked Elmo for checking in on X users’ well-being. 

For those troubled by how the internet’s collective trauma dumping has affected Elmo, worry not. In a Thursday appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, he and his father, Louie, revealed Elmo isn’t able to read most of the comments he received, and his parents largely run the three-year-old’s X account.