A farmer wants to film TikToks. Her pet emu Emmanuel will do anything to stop her
Many of Taylor Blake’s TikTok videos begin the same: she’s at her farm in South Florida, in the middle of a sentence when an ominous, black beak protrudes from the side of the screen.
“Emmanuel, don’t do it. Don’t do it, Emmanuel,” Blake warns in her TikToks.
But many of her videos end the same, too: Pecked to the ground by Emmanuel, her pet emu with an apparent vendetta against cellphones.
Blake and her emu are now viral on her TikTok account @Knucklebumpfarms, with million of viewers buckling over in laughter at Emmanuel, who will go to great lengths to interrupt Blake’s recordings.
The first time Blake caught Emmanuel interfering with her video, she posted it online as a joke, she told The Washington Post, adding that the fame “completely spiraled from there.”
“I’m starting to think the fame has gone to Emmanuel’s head,” Blake joked in one of her TikToks where Emmanuel pecks at the phone mid-video.
She posts sweet videos, too, of the duo cuddling in the field on a sunny day. “Emmanuel doesn’t always choose violence,” she said on Instagram. “Sometimes he chooses cuddles.”
Blake told The Washington Post that part of her motivation for posting videos of her animal menagerie — which includes emus, cows, donkeys and others — is to give people a reason to smile.
“The world is dark, and animals bring everyone joy,” she told The Washington Post.
It’s no secret she’s achieving her goal as her videos reach millions of likes and receive hundreds of kind comments.
“I enjoy getting on here and seeing the laughs and smiles you bring with your critter friends,” One commenter said. “Thank you for sharing with us.”
This story was originally published July 19, 2022 at 7:20 PM with the headline "A farmer wants to film TikToks. Her pet emu Emmanuel will do anything to stop her."
