If it reads like something off of Reddit, that’s because it is something off of Reddit. A quick Google search confirms the remarks appeared two months ago on a thread soliciting reactions to the premiere of “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island.” The comment garnered a mere 27 upvotes.

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Why is it on a billboard?

For weeks now, photos of the sign have circulated around Reddit, raising more questions than answers. Is it some sort of guerilla-marketing campaign by Bravo, the television network behind the show? If not, who decided to put up the random critique of the reality series? How much did it cost? What does it mean? Why even do this?

“There’s been a lot of different theories, which I didn’t necessarily expect,” Darian Newman, a 30-year-old artist and designer behind the billboard, told the Globe.

The short answer to many of those questions is, essentially, the sign was more or less homework.

A fan of the “Real Housewives” franchise, Newman, who is pursuing a master of fine arts degree in graphic designat the Rhode Island School of Design, said he dreamed up the billboard in response to a class assignment that prompted students to “activate a space.”

“When the show started to premiere, there seemed to just be so much commentary around not just the show, but around the state of Rhode Island, and whether or not this was an accurate representation of the state,” said Newman, a Massachusetts native who now lives in Providence. “If you’re watching ‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,’ those conversations are not really happening as much, or at least not in this way.”

A “Welcome to Rhode Island” billboard featuring a Reddit comment about “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island” in downtown Providence is the work of Darian Newman, a graduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design.Christopher Gavin/Globe Staff

While Newman said the sign itself was enough to satisfy the requirements, he ended up taking the assignment a step further.

In the surrounding area are stickers on street signs and poles with commentary he also pulled from Reddit, he said.

“It looks as if people are talking about the state of Rhode Island, so it’s like a little sticker that says, ‘Welcome to Rhode Island. It’s boring, but I did like the outside scenery,’ and that wasn’t someone talking about their trip to Rhode Island, that was someone talking about their response to ‘The Real Housewives of Rhode Island,’” Newman said.

Newman said he also placed a sign in Providence’s Memorial Park that read, “Welcome to Rhode Island Bitch,” one of the snarky quips from the show, although it appears it has since been removed.

Newman said there are “a few other little, I guess you could call them moments hidden around town that I don’t think anyone has quite noticed yet.”

“Really what I wanted to explore was the shift in dynamic of the audience, and … taking the viewer and letting the viewer now become the spectacle by publishing that commentary,” Newman said.

A representative from Lamar, the company that owns the billboard space, confirmed Newman purchased the slot. Newman declined to say how much he spent, but has it booked until about June 4.

“It’s sort of this billboard that faces inwards rather than out, where there’s more traffic, which I think to me represents this sort of feedback loop of we are inside Rhode Island talking about Rhode Island,” he said.

Newman, who has previously worked in brand design and editorial design for tech companies, said he doesn’t know anything about the person behind the Reddit comment.

That is Danielle, a 37-year-old Taunton, Mass., resident who declined to give her last name, but said she’s often in Rhode Island. She thinks the whole thing was kind of cool, but added, “I was probably half asleep when I made that comment.”

“What I was trying to say, though, was … [the housewives on the show] kept saying it’s a small state, everybody knows everything about everybody, and they just kept talking about Rhode Island, and I’m like, ‘It’s not, that’s not really how it is,’” Danielle said. “I mean, you know, these people are not like a real representation of the actual people who live in Rhode Island.”

Not everyone agrees.

“I never shut up about Rhode Island,” wrote one user. “And I know a lot of others who talk it up constantly.”

Another wrote, “People definitely do mention it a lot that are from here.”

Newman said part of what he liked about Danielle‘s comment was “how much it does not ring true to people.”

“I feel like what they’re trying to say is, ‘You can take Rhode Island, you can put it on television, you can try to make it this spectacle and look any way that you want, but I live here, and that’s not true to me,’ ” Newman said. “‘And because I am a person who lives here, I am the authority.’ ”

The comment “represents this dynamic I’m trying to play with, of: This person believes that they are the authority on something. So then I’m taking it, I am blowing it up, and really letting them, in a way, be the authority,” Newman said. “It opens up the debate of, ‘Is this true or is this not true?’ And who gets to say?”

Still, Newman said he wasn’t expecting the attention the billboard has received.

“There’s been a lot of fun in the mystery of it, and in the confusion of it, and in the speculation, so I think being able to create that moment of people coming together, and even if it’s just getting a quick laugh, that’s something that’s felt really great about it,” he said.

Shannon McNamara, of Tiverton, R.I., saw the billboard on Reddit and said, “the mere existence of it is hysterical.”

“I just love that it exists,” said McNamara, who is also a graphic designer. “I don’t even need to know why.”

Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.