mobanmarketCHICAGO —Winslow Dumaine is tethered enough to social media to understand what kind of posts possess the potential to blow up and overtake the plethora of images of sunsets, puppies, and culinary discoveries that tend to flood the Internet these days.
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So, when the Chicago-based artist and comedian innocently enough snapped a photo of an indentation in a sidewalk in the city’s Roscoe Village neighborhood that resembles a rat last weekend, he had an inkling that the local “rat hole” could perhaps find its place in social media infamy.
He had just no idea of how this particular Chicago rat could potentially be the G.O.A.T in city landmarks in a town that already has a bit of a rodent-friendly reputation.
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Since posting the photo last weekend, Dumaine’s photo has drawn more than 5 million views on X (formerly known as Twitter) and has garnered more than 135,000 likes on the platform with another 2,100 on Instagram.
Dumaine, who lives in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood, said that he happened to be in Roscoe Village visiting a shop that sells his art when one of his friends warned him to be on the lookout for the Chicago rathole.
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“I’m looking for the classic Tom and Jerry kind of a joint,” he told Patch on Thursday.
And there, near the intersection of Roscoe and Damen, he saw the imprint in the sidewalk of what appeared to be, you guessed it, a rat hole. Dumaine instantly broke out into laughter, appreciating such an image in a city that has been deemed the nation’s “Rattiest City” for the past nine years running.
According to local legend, the rat hole has been there for decades. According to Dumaine, residents trace the image back to at least 2016. But since his viral social media post last weekend, Dumaine’s photo has drawn myriad responses on the social media platform, including commenters claiming the rat hole should be right up there with the Bean as the must-see Chicago landmark that deserves special recognition.
A message left for the President of the Lakeview-Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce was not immediately responded to on Thursday.
Yet to Dumaine, the image not only fits into Chicago’s rat-infested reputation but offers something that everyone can get behind.
“It involves an animal, it involves something that everyone can get involved with, it didn’t have profanity, and it wasn’t political,” he said. “So all of those things combined kind of made for this perfect storm of algorithmic success.”
He added: “But I have abundantly apologized for blowing up the hole. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”
The post has not only drawn pithy comments about people planning pilgrimages to visit the Chicago Rat Hole — which Dumaine insists is the perfect name for a garage band — but also photo images of other similar sidewalk impressions from around the world.
While Dumaine has found smaller measures of attention from his artwork, his newly released set of Tarot cards and his stand-up comedy act, his Rat Hole social media post has eclipsed any previous success. He says that he has already seen pre-orders for the Tarot cards increase exponentially over the post, which has led people to Google who Winslow Dumaine actually is.
Yet, while he hopes his 15 minutes of fame from the Rat Hole extends a bit further than it has, Dumaine doesn’t wish for it to define who he is — either now or in the future.
I’m trying to be very conscious about it right now,” he told Patch. “I will post about it if there is an update or something that happens in regards to it, but I don’t want to be the guy who is still telling the (Monica) Lewinsky jokes.
“Look, I wrote a book, I made a Tarot deck, I traveled the world selling my stickers, I’m making a card game. I’m such an insane, obnoxious multi-hyphenate that I can’t be the Rat Hole Guy.”
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