What is Funny Store Signs?

Funny Store Signs is a genre of internet humor built around photographs of storefront marquees, chalkboards, and window displays with intentionally or accidentally funny messages.

Where did Funny Store Signs come from?

The internet version of the format traces back to SignSpotting.com, which launched in January 2000 to collect user-submitted photos of unusual signs, and FunnySign.com, which opened on November 21 that year.

What does Funny Store Signs mean?

The label covers any storefront sign whose text or layout produces a laugh, from a pub chalkboard pun to a marquee where a broken letter twists the meaning into something absurd.

How do you use Funny Store Signs?

People take part by photographing an unusual sign in the wild and posting it to a subreddit like /r/funnysigns, which opened for submissions on April 29, 2012.

Is Funny Store Signs still popular?

The format was still driving viral Reddit posts and blog roundups in 2014, including a pub chalkboard photo that hit over 4,100 upvotes on /r/funny that May, and major sites like BuzzFeed were compiling storefront sign photos through that period.

Funny Store Signs

2000photo humorclassic

Published August 1, 2026

Funny Store Signs are photographs of storefront marquees, chalkboards, and other displays carrying jokes, puns, or accidentally hilarious typos. The genre took shape online in early 2000 with dedicated collection sites like SignSpotting.com, then spread through YouTube compilations, humor blogs, and Reddit's /r/funnysigns subreddit across the 2000s and 2010s.

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Overview

Funny Store Signs are storefront marquees, chalkboards, and other displays that carry humorous messages, whether intentional jokes or accidentally funny errors caused by typos and technical malfunctions6. Photos of these signs have circulated online since the early 2000s, when dedicated collection sites like SignSpotting.com opened to gather user submissions1.

The comedy usually lives in specifics: a well-crafted pun on a pub chalkboard, a marquee where a missing letter warps the sentence into something absurd, or a business owner using their outdoor board as a bulletin for topical jabs at politics and pop culture7. The format thrives on passers-by snapping photos and sharing them, which keeps it loose and free of any single author or gatekeeper4.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Personal websites / Reddit (viral spread)

Date

2000

The genre's internet history traces back to January 2000, when SignSpotting.com launched as an early hub for photographs of unusual signs, including those found on storefronts1. Later that same year, on November 21, 2000, a second site called FunnySign.com went live under a domain built specifically around this material2. Both sites depended on user submissions, so no individual creator or first photo defines the format.

How It Spread

Video compilations moved the genre onto YouTube in the mid-2000s. On November 8, 2006, YouTuber tomerikp uploaded a slideshow of funny store signs that pulled in over two million views within eight years3. On March 3, 2007, YouTuber Ernie Deveau posted a similar compilation of store sign FAILs that reached around 900,000 views6.

Blog roundups kept the material circulating through the late 2000s and early 2010s. Humor site Holy Taco published a set of hilarious storefronts on February 1, 20104. Reddit joined in on April 29, 2012, when the /r/funnysigns subreddit opened for user submissions8. BuzzFeed rolled storefront gags into its list format on August 31, 2013, with an article called 88 Funniest Signs of the Summer5.

Individual sign photos also broke out on Reddit. On May 21, 2014, Redditor Ludop0lis posted a photograph of a joke chalkboard spotted outside an Irish pub to /r/funny, where it drew more than 4,100 upvotes in three months7. Nine days later, Redditor cubs1917 shared a New York City bar's blackboard sign that ribbed former U.S. President George W. Bush, gathering over 3,500 upvotes in two months6.

How to Use This Meme

The format is documentation more than creation, so participation usually means photographing an unusual sign you walk past and posting it to a subreddit like /r/funnysigns8. Bar and pub owners are common producers, using sandwich-board chalkboards outside their doors to write daily jokes aimed at foot traffic7.