The Shoppers Drug Mart at Bloor and Bedford has the most unhinged social media account in the city

Across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum is a still important yet slightly less esteemed landmark: the Bloor and Bedford Shoppers Drug Mart. Though it’s one of the busiest locations in the city, nothing about the store appears out of the ordinary. But take one look at the outpost’s Instagram, @shoppers_bloorbedford, handled by beauty boutique manager Ambrose Doucette, and all that changes.

Doucette’s spontaneous, rapid-fire monologues oscillate between conspiratorial whispers and shrieking caterwauls as he extolls the virtues of $300 eye creams or $12 boxes of hair dye. Each unscripted rant is shot in a single take, and Doucette’s frantic, almost-operatic delivery elevates common advertising into, dare we say, surrealist art. It’s completely transfixing—both hysterically funny and totally unhinged. We spoke with Doucette to learn more about how he got started on social media, how he likes being a Toronto micro-celeb and what his employer thinks of it all.

I’m so excited to be chatting with you. How long have you worked for Shoppers Drug Mart? I started working at the Bloor and Bedford location 15 years ago. It started out as a part-time job, which grew into a full-time job, which grew into a management position. I thought it would be a final little job before I retired, but I never retired. I’ve been in the beauty industry for over 40 years. Before Shoppers, I worked in different salons and spas, like Fleuri in Markham, for 15 years.

Have you always had a passion for beauty? Yes. I’ve always found the way beauty products can transform us to be fascinating. My older sister, Rosemary, went to school to be an aesthetician, and she taught me a little bit about makeup when she was just starting out. This was around the early ’90s. At the time, I had bad skin, so she taught me how to cover it up. I have an art background—I went to Sheridan College for Art Fundamentals—and I realized that makeup is a lot like painting except you’re using a different canvas. Then it snowballed into wearing bronzer, then mascara. Now I see young gay guys all over Instagram wearing makeup, and I think, If you only knew how hard I had it. Now I can sit in the subway with a face full of makeup and no one even bats an eye, but I can guarantee you, 40 years ago, it wasn’t easy. I would get called a “f*cking f*ggot” or a “c*cksucker” on the daily, by guys who were probably battling their own sexuality.

I have great skin now, so I don’t need makeup, but I always have it on because I’m under fluorescent lights all day and it makes me look better. I also wear it because I’m selling it, and you have to know the product you’re talking about. If you walk into Louis Vuitton and the salesperson is wearing Payless Shoes, it’s not going to work, honey.

When did you start making videos for your work’s Instagram account? Every location of Shoppers Drug Mart across the country is told to get on Instagram and post what’s happening with the store. I noticed that every store was posting too much of the same thing. If a new product comes out and everybody is talking about the same thing, you’re going to keep scrolling. I was thinking I would try something a bit different. I made a few videos with just a little bit of humour to test the water and see how far I could go. I didn’t want to offend anybody or upset head office in any way. In May, I did a video about a Clinique product sucking the blackheads out of your nose, and it blew up. I was at work, and my boss came in and told me, “Your video is going viral.” It got over 30,000 hits pretty much overnight.

Does Shoppers give you direction or do you come up with the ideas yourself? I come up with the ideas myself, and I shoot it all in my off time. I’m doing it for the love of the store, because I’ve been there a long time. Vania, my assistant in the beauty department, films all the videos. She’s got a bit of a creative eye—she’s the one who told me to sit down and play with the Barbies when we were shooting the Quo Barbie video, because initially I was doing it standing up. There’s no editing, so sometimes I have to rehearse a few times to get it right.

In terms of the content, Shoppers wants me to promote things that are fairly current, so I usually talk about the events and offers I have coming up in the store. There are basic guidelines everyone has to follow: keep it clean, no swearing, no criticizing another brand or product.

Corporate social media tends to be pretty bland. Has anyone at head office ever told you to tone it down a bit? No one has come up to me and said anything. I’m assuming they’re happy because they haven’t told me to stop.

Beauty brands are often particular about how they want to be perceived. Have you had any feedback from the brands themselves? There was one company that I won’t name that asked me to take a video down. It was a prestige product, and they didn’t think my video, which was very extra, was following their guidelines. I respect them very much, so I took the video down. The funny thing is, the day it went up, one of our regular customers who had no idea we carried that product came in and ended up spending $2,000 on products in total. Ironically, a few days later, I heard from a different company that had seen the video before it was taken down and actually asked me to do a collaboration with them based on it, so one door closed and another opened.

​​Plus, in the beauty industry I’m very well known. I’ve won several COSA and Beauty’s Best awards, as you can see by the pins on my jacket. These companies, like Clinique and Lancôme and Estée Lauder, all know who I am. I’m a good business person. I know what sells, and I know how to sell it. A lot of the products I have promoted have gone viral and have sold out the next day, like the Quo Barbie collection and the Clarins eye-lift cream.

Do many customers recognize you from your videos? We get a lot of people coming in who want to meet me and take pictures, and the associate manager recently asked me how many of the people coming in for pictures ever buy anything. It’s probably half. The response hasn’t blown me out of the water yet, but it’s certainly sparked a lot more interest.

How close is your exaggerated social media persona to who you are in real life? I am very crazy. I’ve got lots of energy. I’m in my 60s, so I probably have more energy than the average 60-year-old—probably even more than some of the 40-year-olds out there. I’m very spun. I’m not on any medication. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I just exercise, eat well and sleep very well. I like to make the staff laugh. But am I as nutty as you see on Instagram? Probably not that nutty, but still pretty close. I come from a very large family, and they say I’ve always been an entertainer. So how close is it on a scale of 10? I’d say 7.5.

I’ve noticed the videos getting wilder and wilder. You’ve started incorporating props. How far do you plan to take this? Oh, did you notice that? I think something shifted when I did the video about hair colour and I had the black and blond wigs on. People came up and told me, “I could not stop laughing.” That’s when I realized I needed to amp up the craziness a little more. Now I’m finding that, if I don’t have a prop, the video will get less views. When is it going to end? When people tell me to stop, I guess.

Why do you think your videos resonate with people? People like campy things. They like drag queens and anything that’s over the top. When people come into the store, I don’t say, “Hi, how are you?” That’s boring. I’ll give them a sassy, “You know.” That response gets a reaction from people. We go through our lives with such stress that if somebody can give you a little piece of fun and laughter, it’s worth it. I’m very knowledgeable in my field, and customers are there to get that information but also to have some fun. Come and spend your money with me because I’ll give you a good time.

How did you come up with your catchphrase, “I’ll see you at the cash”? It’s something I’ve said a million times at work. I’ll be with a customer and say, “Go grab the rest of your things and I’ll meet you at the cash.” I came up with it very honestly. Now when people come inside the store to meet me, they’ll ask for a video of me saying that.

What’s next for Ambrose Doucette and the Bloor-Bedford Shoppers? Any special deals we should know about? I’m showing people what I’m like outside the store with my new account, @absoluteambrose. It’s all about showcasing my lifestyle and some of the funny things I see around the city. It’s taking off slowly, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. My goal within a year is to have it become as explosive and exciting as this Shoppers one.

So you plan to keep doing this for the foreseeable future? People always ask me, “When are you retiring?” I have no idea. I have way too much energy to even think about retiring. I think when I run out of steam I’ll know, but I’m pushing for another seven years. I’ve enjoyed my life. I still feel like I’m 40 years old.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.