Emmanuel Todd Lopez is quickly becoming the most famous Emu on TikTok.
“He’s so quirky and so unique. And there’s not much that I don’t love about him, to be honest,” Taylor Blake, who helps care for the big bird, tells PEOPLE.
“I’ve taken on the role as caretaker of all the critters,” Blake says. “I grew up on this farm, so I’ve been here my whole life. I’ve always done fun videos with the animals. I always spend a lot of time out with the animals. I’m very bonded and connected to all of them.”
But “all it took was an emu to really set things off,” she says.
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Emmanuel made one of his first appearances on the farm’s TikTok in an outtake video Blake posted, where the bird interrupts the clip to stare at the screen.
According to Blake, Emmanuel does not like phones. She thinks it’s because the emu doesn’t like when the attention isn’t 100 percent focused on him. By attacking Blake’s phone on camera, Emmanuel has won the attention and hearts of the entire internet, helping the farm TikTok account amass 1.8 million followers.
Emmanuel is seven years old and about 5 foot 8 inches tall. He has formed a close bond with Blake since moving to the farm as a young emu, and the pair’s friendship makes their videos even sweeter.
“I love the fact that he loves me,” Blake says.
The friends start each day with hugs and kisses and often take mid-day naps together under a tree in the pasture.
“He genuinely loves me. He can be laying down somewhere in the pasture, and I can walk right up to him and lay down on the ground next to him and just cuddle him,” she says. “He’s just so great.”
Even though she knew the emu was special, Blake never imagined the animal would become the farm’s TikTok star.
“I can honestly say I never in a million years expected him to be the one that went crazy viral. But I’m so glad that it was him because he’s such a natural on camera,” she says.
“I’ve had some people say, ‘Oh, it’s staged,’ or ‘He’s trained.’ No, he is the most natural guy on camera. It’s incredible,” Blake continues, adding that Emmanuel lives on the farm as a pet and his TikTok videos capture the bird in his natural state.
“They don’t do anything. They just kind of walk around all day and cause mayhem, and that’s really it. But we love him for it,” Blake says of emus, Emmanuel in particular.
She loves that he’s helping her spread happiness around the world.
“What I’m enjoying most about it is just knowing that we are creating content that is genuinely bringing people happiness and spreading joy across,” Blake says. “I’m very, very, very thankful for that.”
source: people.com
