TikTok video goes viral showing something at the Wichita airport most people miss

Wichita engineer Kim Burton is so popular on TikTok that when asked about views for one video she posted this week, she casually said, “I think we’re at, like, a half million for today.”

Burton, a senior manager in product support for Textron Aviation, was at the Eisenhower National Airport on Wednesday flying out to California to a conference for women in aviation when she noticed a curious contraption along the wall just past security.

Between Dunkin’ and an airport news shop, Burton discovered one of the Wichita Public Library’s short story dispensers.

“If this really gives me a short story, that will be absolutely delightful,” Burton said she thought to herself.

She took a video of the machine as she pushed a button to dispense a short story — “The Cactus” by O. Henry, as it turns out — and narrated what was happening in a happy, sort of expectant voice and then shared her delight upon receiving the paper printout.

In the TikTok, Burton noted she was relieved she didn’t need her library card since she didn’t have it on her. She’s a big library fan, which is part of why she wanted to do the TikTok.

“Anything I can do to give them some props.”

She said she also loves the airport.

Lots of viewers have asked more about how to find the machine, so Burton said, “When I go back, I’m going to have to do a follow-up.”

She said she enjoyed “The Cactus.”

“It was very moving. It’s an old story.”

Burton said it was from the 1800s, “so it had some complex sentences.”

Jaime Nix, director of libraries for the Wichita Public Library, was charmed by Burton’s TikTok.

“Isn’t that adorable?”

Nix said she was delighted that Burton was delighted because “part of the reason why we’re doing this is the delight.”

The library received a Knight Foundation grant to install three of the machines about five years ago. They’ve been at various sites over the years. Currently, they’re at the airport, Reverie Coffee Roasters and the Evergreen Community Center & Library.

Since 2018, more than 36,560 stories have been dispensed. Reverie has the machine that gets the most use, with customers reading about 4,500 stories a year.

Local artists also can contribute short stories that the library will consider adding to its collection to be dispensed.

Nix acknowledged that the dispenser at the airport might be hard to notice, and it probably needs a bigger, better sign, which she’d like to install.

“I need some funding, but yeah.”

This is the most Wichita-specific TikTok Burton has done.

“I post a TikTok almost every day,” she said. “I like to get the word out about engineering. . . . There’s not very many girls that are engineers.”

She does a lot of TikToks on “why airplanes are cool.”

“I use LEGOs to tell people about airplanes.”

Burton also is part of Make ICT and often posts videos of things she’s making there.

Her most-popular TikTok was one about how you should always keep two ice scrapers in your car “so you can give one away to some poor dude in a parking lot using his credit card.”

That’s at about 1.2 million, she said.

If you’re thinking of getting on TikTok or are already on the platform and wanting your videos to get more views, Burton has some advice.

“Post a thing every day, and you can start with crafts or your pets. You don’t have to show yourself. You don’t have to be too brave.”

She recommends finding a niche topic.

Then, Burton said, “You find internet friends.”

Including, perhaps, ones in China that may be spying on her, as is one of the biggest fears with TikTok.

“That actually is a concern in my mind,” Burton said.

She said she wishes TikTok were a bit more transparent, but she said she’s not posting anything that isn’t already out there.

For instance, with her aviation TikToks, Burton said she’s basically doing “LEGO versions of what’s on Wikipedia.”

And for her library TikTok, she said, well, “so China now knows Wichita has an airport.”