‘Angry Ikea guy’ Scott Seiss, a Baltimore native, roasts customers on TikTok based on time as employee in White Marsh

In November 2016, Dundalk native Scott Seiss began working at an Ikea call center near the company’s store in White Marsh. As part of his job he reviewed emails and social media messages sent by customers who often reported late deliveries or missing parts. One man, Seiss recalls, was so irate with the delay in sending him a replacement for a wonky piece of furniture, “He just sent a video attachment of him burning the table,” Seiss recalled with a laugh. “Customers are so wild.”

It’s sort of funny in a twisted way, but, eager to break into the world of standup comedy, Seiss kept his day job strictly separate from his ambitions. Seiss, a 27-year-old graduate of Eastern Technical High School in Essex and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, left the area — and his job at Ikea — in April 2019, moving to just outside New York City to Bloomfield, New Jersey, to pursue his career in comedy.

Ironically, Seiss’ hilarious portrayal of a disgruntled Ikea staffer just might help launch his career as a comic. In a series of videos posted to TikTok and shared widely across the internet, Seiss, his old Ikea lanyard around his neck, imitates customers and mocks their complaints.

Responding to an often-heard gripe: “You just lost yourself a customer,” Seiss gets in close to the camera. “You think I own this business?” he sneers. “You think I own Ikea? I’m a part-time employee halfway through a two-week notice. I don’t give a [expletive.].”

Collectively, Seiss’ Ikea employee videos, which now number 21, have garnered tens of millions of views on TikTok alone, and more on platforms like Twitter and Youtube. Among his newfound fans are celebrities like Peyton Reed, director of “Ant-Man.” Comedian Patton Oswalt shared the videos and wrote: “I can’t stop watching this.” Even basketball legend Lebron James shared the videos on Twitter, writing: “I’m literally shedding tears right now.”

Seiss says he was doing dishes when a friend texted him to say James had tweeted about his video this week. “That can’t be right,” Seiss thought.

The key to the videos’ humor is in the details. Dramatic music plays in the background. Seiss, who wears a 1970s-style mustache, doesn’t blink or take a breath as he speaks, honing a gangster-like rage that would make Robert De Niro’s character in “Taxi Driver” look like he just took a sedative. (”I promise I’m not that angry in real life,” Seiss said.)

He began filming the Ikea videos in February, testing them out on his wife, Amanda, who shared her own retail experience working at White Marsh Mall. “She makes sure that it feels truthful to the retail experience,” Seiss said. “I see her reaction to see if the videos are funny enough to post.” He filmed and posted the videos over a period of around two months — stretching over two different haircuts. “Since February I’ve been posting two to three retail videos on my TikTok per week,” he says. He doesn’t have a title for the bit — which he thinks of as Angry Retail Guy.

Angry Retail Guy isn’t his first stab at TikTok virality. Earlier videos see him skewering the children’s book author R.L. Stine, or depicting a meeting between Ebenezer Scrooge and Jeff Bezos. (Scrooge is astonished by Bezos, who seems to one-up him in the Evil Department by refusing his employees even a bathroom break).

But nothing has taken off quite like Angry Retail Guy. The first video alone has now been viewed more than 8 million times. Viewers have included comedians like Jim Gaffigan and Paul F. Tompkins, who have both shared the videos on Twitter. Seiss says he’s extra appreciative when retail employees like and share his videos. “Labor policies, workers’ rights, making sure workers have the right to support themselves... that’s huge for me,” Seiss said. “That’s why it means so much to me that people that work thankless jobs like the videos I make so much.”

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