Tree-felling display home transport generates online buzz

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This article was published 13/08/2021 (1231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg display home that recently smashed into trees and street signs as it was transported via truck has now been to British Columbia, the Panama Canal and Oz — via the internet.

An online Manitoba starlet, Photoshopped images of the house in the city and beyond have gone viral.

The home’s transport Saturday led to the destruction of nearly two dozen trees in the Charleswood neighbourhood along Roblin Boulevard, between Scotswood Drive and the Perimeter Highway. The house was too wide to fit on the road. It also hit several street signs.

The Winnipeg Police Service said officers arrested the driver, who’s facing a charge of mischief over $5,000. The incident is now subject to a provincial investigation.

Darlene Kuchar, 43, saw a photo online of the house at the Perimeter Highway overpass near Wilkes Avenue. Its roof is about to hit an overhanging sign; part of the building is jutting into oncoming traffic.

“I was thinking, ‘(The driver) must’ve been so stressed out trying to get this big house and this job done,’” said Kuchar, who chuckled at the awkward image and, like others who saw the photo, began to work her design magic.

On Thursday, she inserted the house into Manitoba-based pictures — sliding at Fun Mountain, sledding down Springhill Sports Park slopes, moseying along the river in Pinawa. (“I even made him a tube,” she said.)

One of her works (the house trekking the Selkirk Bridge) was shared hundreds of times on Facebook in one a day.

“I can’t even imagine how many people got to see that,” she said. “Everyone loves this house, and everyone wants to know where the house is going.”

She also made a TikTok video filled with pictures of the display home in different places. People have asked her to make specific photos, such as the house in a rock band album cover.

“It was just meant in good fun, and it doesn’t mean the driver any harm,” Kuchar said. “I just found it amusing… and it was nice to make people laugh.”

Similar memes have circulated on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

“I’m not really sure why this (house) went viral,” said Alyson Shane, president of Winnipeg-based digital marketing agency Starling Social.

However, “I love when people make jokes about the city you live in, or the province where you live,” she said. “It contributes to our sense of community.”

That’s what memes are, Shane said: pictures allowing people to share the same joke.

“It’s kind of like when you tell a joke to your friends and they laugh, so you keep telling the joke,” she said. “It’s basically a way of disseminating culture across the internet.”

Most don’t take off, but something about the house and its tale (and trail) of damage stuck with people.

“It really just comes down to what feels relevant and relatable in the moment,” Shane said.

— with files from Joyanne Pursaga

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca