Colorblind 22-year-old sees color for the 1st time after putting on special glasses

As a colorblind man, McKinley "Mac" Erves had never known exactly what he was missing. But his friends showed him a whole new world on Monday afternoon when they gifted him special colorblindness glasses for his 22nd birthday.

His genuine and endearing reaction to the glasses, which he says changed his life, immediately went viral online.

“I was at a loss for words,” Erves told TODAY. “For them to actually go out of their way and remember and do something for me like that when I never expressed how badly I wanted the glasses, it made me feel really good.”

As of Tuesday night, his video on Twitter had more than 150,000 likes and dozens of positive responses.

"The fact that I hardly ever mentioned my want for colorblind glasses and my friends literally went out of their way to get me a pair for my birthday just tells me how much they love my a-- and I couldn’t have asked for better people to call my brothers!!!" Erves wrote in his post.

The video shows Erves walking around his driveway, exclaiming as he looks at everyday objects in full color.

"Bro what?!" he shouted excitedly in disbelief as he looked at a green bush in front of his house. "Bro, there's no way y'all see that s---."

Erves — a student at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia, which is about 65 miles southwest of Atlanta — has a type of colorblindness where he has difficulty making out specific shades of green or red, he said. But when he put on the glasses made by ONKE, he said a simple green bush in his front yard “popped.” He hasn’t taken them off during the daytime since he got them, he said.

“With the glasses, you see how things are supposed to be," he said. "I’ve always seen what I’ve seen, but then when these glasses corrected my vision, it’s something I won’t forget.”

Related: The pair of color-blind brothers choke up after putting on special glasses that helps enhance colors.

Erves discovered he is colorblind in middle school when he took a color blindness test. It never bothered him before, he said, because he didn’t know what he was missing.

“This is probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “It is life-altering.”