They have millions of followers on Instagram. They generate major profits for their owners. They are... pet influencers.
Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub, Boo the Pomeranian and Doug the Pug are just some of the Internet’s star animals, who do everything from support worthy causes to promote major brands.
The death this week of Lil Bub, a cat whose tongue was always hanging out due to genetic anomalies, inspired a wave of emotion that highlighted the Internet’s power to elevate just about anything to cult status.
Photo: AFP
“She was a ray of pure joy in my life and so many others,” said one Instagram user, who uses the handle @missmaddyg.
Lil Bub rose to fame after her adoption in 2011, when her owner, music producer Mike Bridavsky, began posting photos and updates about her online.
Her story garnered three million followers on Facebook, 2.4 million on Instagram and more than 800,000 on Twitter.
Photo: AFP
Bub’s fame eventually caught the attention of scientists.
In May 2015, researchers at the University of Missouri sequenced her genome as part of a project to determine what genetic variations had caused her adorable deformities.
Bridavsky also started a national fund for special needs pets, the first of its kind, with Bub serving as its face.
“Bub has made a huge difference in the world of animal welfare and in the lives of millions of people worldwide,” Bridavsky wrote on Instagram, noting the fund has raised US$700,000 for “animals in need,” with US$75,000 raised last year alone.
Over the course of her life, the Indiana-based cat lent her star power to multiple causes supported by Greenpeace and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Since 2013, Lil Bub has also been the face of campaigns with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) promoting sterilization and pet adoption, as opposed to buying designer breeds.
Lil Bub “used her stardom to make the world a better place for animals,” PETA said in a tribute tweet. “Honor her legacy by remembering her message: always adopt, never shop.”
But while PETA campaigns director Ashley Byrne welcomes pet influencers’ charitable ventures, she is also adamant that the work must not come at the expense of the pets’ welfare.
Nobody should “treat animals as accessories or frivolous possessions,” she said. Instead, “it’s important for people with animals who have an audience on the Internet to encourage their followers to treat their pets like members of the family.”
That, says animal talent manager Loni Edwards, is exactly what makes pet influencers so successful.
Edwards’s talent agency, The Dog Agency, manages pet influencers of all species, from Bruno the fat cat to CEO Edwards’s own French bulldog.
“As a society, we’ve evolved so that we now think of pets as our children,” Edwards said in an interview with Vox last year.
“They’re such an important part of our lives.”
A VALUABLE IMAGE
As of this year, American households owned more than 42 million cats and 63 million dogs. The market for pet products in the US earned US$72 billion last year, according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA).
Additionally, since Instagram launched in 2010, the word “cat” has been used on the platform 193 million times and the word “dog” 243 million times.
“Pets raise endorphins and make people feel happy,” Edwards said. They are adorable to look at and are easier to connect with than human influencers. Human-facing brands want to work with pet influencers because they want to show that they align on the values of their consumer, and their consumer loves pets.”
As a result, pet influencers can be incredibly lucrative.
Lil Bub’s fellow celebrity feline Grumpy Cat — known for her perpetual scowl — amassed 8.5 million fans on Facebook, 2.5 million followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on Twitter.
From 2013 until her death in May, Grumpy Cat served as the face of cat food brand Friskies.
A California court last year awarded her owner Tabatha Bundesen US$710,001 in damages for violation of image rights, after a coffee company used pictures of Grumpy’s face without authorization.
Just before her death, Lil Bub starred in campaigns advertising clothing and coffee for “Black Friday” sales.
The highly-commercial pet influencer industry could seem at odds with charitable giving.
But Bridavsky said Bub had left a proud legacy of raising both funds and spirits.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built