WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
With a job like this, he’s got to have tough skin.
Despite vitriol online, a self-titled “bad taxidermist” stuck with his niche trade after trying to impress his girlfriend — now, he has amassed a hefty following online.
Jack Devaney, 28, embarked on his taxidermy journey six years ago to “impress his girlfriend,” he told Need To Know.
At the time, he was “pretty confident” in his rat skin-peeling abilities and thought it to be the perfect date night activity with his honey, who he now lives with.
“She finds some of it funny,” the amateur taxidermist from Manchester told The Post, “but we bounce ideas off of each other, she’s helped me out at markets and she always gets first dibs on my newest creations.”
On TikTok, where he touts more than 117,000 followers, he showcases an array of creations that range from mildly unorthodox to downright bizarre.
He became an overnight internet sensation after first debuting his curious critters and has since expanded his brand into an online shop and podcast.
“I branded myself as a bad taxidermist because I didn’t want people to think I was struggling to make photorealistic interpretations of animals, I just want to make things that make people laugh,” he told Need To Know.
On TikTok, the clips of his creepy keepsakes rack up thousands of views, as his somewhat baffled audience applauds his duck-banana “animalgamations,” human-bird hybrids, mouse magnets and animal appendages glued to springs.
But perhaps the most popular item in Devaney’s curio shop is his infamous rat pencil case, first imagined as a college project, which elicited mixed reactions online from rave reviews to repulsed critics.
“Sometimes I like to try and recreate animals that already exist from other animal parts, sometimes I just start sewing rats together and see where the moment takes me,” Devaney, who has an OnlyFans, told The Post of his workflow.
“One of my favorite things to do with animalgamations is to work them out as they go,” he added, “I might fixate on it needing to stand up, or for its eyes to he on stalks and then I just keep adding to it until it balances and can stand on its own.”
The notoriously bad taxidermist purchases frozen, deceased animals, such as ducklings, chickens, mice and rats, on the internet before working his morbid magic and selling the final products online.
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On his website, Devaney lists animal feet amulets for $33, framed butterflies for $33 and a plethora of hybrid figurines from less than $100 to more than $300.
But Devaney, who has penned a few satirical novels, is inundated with hateful remarks by people who believe he practices animal cruelty.
“Sometimes I get hate over my work, people say it’s cruel — even though all the animals are already dead when I get them,” he told Need To Know. “Some people have been threatening towards me online.”
He added: “But when I show my work in person at craft markets people seem to be dismissive of it initially, but I tend to get a fair few to warm up to it when I tell them the names of things.”
On TikTok, reactions vary from shock to amusement.
“I’ve been dying to buy one,” lamented one user in reference to the rodent pencil case.
“These are brilliant, the creativity from something so dark as death is honestly next level,” applauded another.
“I’m obsessed with your mind,” championed someone else.
“Everybody’s so creative,” commented one user.
“You scare me,” an aghast viewer wrote.
“That’s just wrong,” another chided.
Because Devaney never thought he’d become a taxidermist, he’s not sure where he’ll take his cooky craft next.
“I don’t really have any hopes for the future, I never aspired to be a taxidermist when I set out as one, so I’m just happy with wherever it takes me,” he told The Post.
