A Toronto Real Estate Broker Made A 'Squid Game' Billboard For Halloween & It's Gone Viral

If you've driven near Finch Station recently, chances are you have already seen this Squid Game-themed billboard.

Amir Shirazi, a 26-year-old real estate broker who has been working in the industry for the last six years, set up the billboard at Yonge Street and Bishop Avenue that Torontonians can check out for the next month.

He got the idea to put out the billboard as soon as the massively popular Netflix show came out but figured he'd wait until Halloween so he could get the guard costume in time.

"It's a joke because if you watch the show, you know that when you get that card, like the circle, the triangle and the square, [it] means you don't have money," Shirazi told Narcity. "The thing is because house prices in Toronto are so high, I'm like, 'Oh if you guys can afford it, give me a call.' You know, I think the whole point of a billboard is [to] catch the people's attention and get people talking about you."

Toronto's real estate is notoriously expensive, to the point where the city was recently named one of the most unaffordable North American cities to live in.

"Everything that you want to buy right now is going $200,000 over asking [with] 20 offers," Shirazi said.

This isn't the first time the young broker has caught the public's attention with a creative billboard. Playing into some of Toronto's iconic slang and the fact that a lot of his clientele had boyfriends or husbands, he decided to coin himself as "your shorty's realtor" onto a sign.

"I had realtors from the [U.S.] that were messaging me [for that one]," Shirazi said.

He added that the whole point of a billboard is to catch people's attention, which it most certainly did. On Reddit, a picture of the Squid Game billboard has been upvoted over 2,000 times and received over 200 comments since it was posted on October 30.

"I'm not saying I'm gonna play Squid Game or anything. It's just, you know, it's Halloween," Shirazi said in response to some of the comments he's seen suggesting he's implying he's going to kill people, just like the guards did in the actual games. "[I'm] just trying to have fun, you know, just doing a different style of marketing. And I personally think it works."

Torontonians can "100%" expect another one of Shirazi's billboards to come out in the future.

"When the next big trend comes, expect another billboard to come," the broker said.