An Ottawa artist put a hilarious meme on his outdoor studio sign this month, and folks on TikTok are loving the creator’s reference.
“Y’all, I’m dying—someone in Ottawa has been keeping up with their TikTok references,” says a TikToker who got over a million views on a video showing the sign.
“Emmanuel don’t do it!” reads the Loen.Design sign at 2207 Carling Ave.
“This made my day, idk what they design over there on Carling, but I’d give them my money 😂😂😂 someone tell @Knuclle they’ve made it LMAO,” the TikToker shared in the video description.
Artist gets “messages from people every week”
“Bro that sign is always on point, I always look for it when I’m going down that road,” wrote another TikToker in the comments. “You have your fingers on the pulse of the internet 🤣🤣,” someone else told the artist on Instagram.
Emmanuel, the emu, is known on the internet as an iPhone-hating animal who regularly steals the spotlight in his owner’s TikTok videos by pecking the phone until it falls to the ground.
This isn’t the first time the artist has used the sign outside his studio for hilarious references.
Rich Loen, owner of Loen.Design told Narcity via email that he usually picks less well-known references. But this time, he chose the TikTok meme featured on Jimmy Fallon “because the young lady in the clip was great, and real, as was the emu.”
“Jimmy Don’t Do It”www.youtube.com
“I like putting up lines from songs and imagining people singing to themselves after they drive by,” the creator says. “I get messages from people every week.”
The old sign dates back to the 1960s and came with the building located in Ottawa’s west end.
Memes, movie lines and more
Sign messages.Courtesy of Rich Loen
Other memes the builder has featured include the relatable “This is fine” comic. This famous line alludes to a cartoon dog sitting at a table with a coffee — but in a room completely engulfed in flames.
Back in April, the Ottawa man also featured the Ghostbusters line “There is no Dana only Zuul,” said by a character possessed by a demigod named Zuul.
“Are you the gatekeeper?” responded one Instagram user, referring to another Ghostbusters quote.
Although some might consider him the gatekeeper of the internet, Loen says he has over 100 messages in queue for the sign.
“It’s a lot of fun for us as we have no agenda and can just put up whatever we like. So we do!”
He adds that, as an artist, he likes to make “strange and weird art things that I find interesting.”
And, if you don’t catch some of the creator’s more obscure references, he says most can be found on Google and are “a simple search away.”
Time to catch up on Know Your Meme!