20 MayEpisode 206 | An academic study of corgi butts on the Internet (and other animal content online): Univ. of Alabama’s Jessica Maddox on Ukrainian kittens, cloned influencers, and the neoliberal “economy of cute”
Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media at the University of Alabama, is the author of the forthcoming book The Internet Is For Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives. Her research has largely involved looking at how people share and consume photos of animals on the Internet. She and Annie discuss a variety of topics relating to social media pets. Maddox offers an academic take on why people create Instagram accounts for their pets, are drawn to stories about Ukrainian rescue cats, and more. What does Youtube have to say about the practice of tying puppies to train tracks so that someone can post a video of their rescue? Why do some brands prefer to work with pet influencers over human ones? Are we living in a new era of anthropomorphizing our pets in a non-private arena, or is this just a new iteration of an age-old practice? And: Is it possible to breed an NFT cat? Maddox addresses these questions, and more.
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Mentioned in this episode:
The Internet Is For Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives
Why the Internet Is Obsessed With the Cats and Dogs of Ukraine
Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson
Instagram accounts mentioned:
Lola Barksdale (@lolabarksdale) • Instagram photos and videos
Wander With Willow (@wander_with_willow) • Instagram photos and videos
Dr. Hake | Veterinarian (@calfvet_) • Instagram photos and videos
Hunter Finn (@dr.hunterfinn) • Instagram photos and videos
Follow School For The Dogs on Instagram:
Follow Annie on Instagram:
Related episodes:
Episode 27 | Katie Sturino, mom to @ToastMeetsWorld, on Instadog stardom
Episode 38 | Our Student Lola Barksdale: A Floofdragon's Guide to Instagram Stardom
Episode 48 | Surfer, author, rapper, adventurer, humanitarian: Meet Pip the Beach Cat
Episode 52 | Why viral videos are bad for dogs, with Eileen Anderson
Transcript:
Annie:
So Jessica Maddox, tell me your exact title so I get it right.
Jessica Maddox:
Yeah. I am an assistant professor of digital media technology at the University of Alabama. I earned my PhD in mass communication from the University of Georgia in 2018.
Annie:
And tell me about your field of study.
Jessica:
Yeah, so I, largely speaking, just study social media and how social media contribute to internet pop culture. So, I've always been interested in things like selfies and memes and YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and the like. And several years ago, shortly after graduating with my PhD, I became very interested in researching cats and dogs and horses and bearded dragons and all of the Internet's pets. Because I was finding in my line of work that there really wasn't a whole lot of research being done on something that is so much a part of how we are online and how we communicate online.
You know, even if you don't have pets yourself, I'm sure people encounter photos of other people's pets. There's pet and animal Facebook groups and subreddits and TikToks. And I, so I was just fascinated by how little there was out there. So I began to do research into this area, and now my book, The Internet is for Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives will be out this fall.
Annie:
I am not an academic and I'm endlessly fascinated and frequently surprised about the areas of study that exist.
Jessica:
Oh yeah. There's so many.
Annie:
Once I discovered your work, I was like, obviously there needs to be people studying this in real time. Because God knows, in the future, this will be an important, an important, part of history. That people will study. But it never really occurred to me that this was something, that the internet, even the modern internet is something people are studying.
Jessica:
Oh yeah. There's a huge contingent of people, you know, who are in the field we call quote unquote Internet Studies. And it's a huge and super fast growing field. It's really been around kind of in earnest since the nineties, but was obviously much, much smaller then and is now much more robust. And yeah, I mean, I even have graduate students and students who are in their first semester of PhD come into my office and go, ‘Wait, you can study that?’ And I say, ‘You can study anything.’
[laughing]
You can study absolutely anything you want.
Annie:
Let me read a little bit from, well, this article that you wrote called The Secret Life of Pet Instagram Accounts:
“Pet and animal images are ubiquitous on social media with dog and cat photography, playing a huge role in the visual economy of the internet. Such a visual economy is often referred to as a cute economy, and while pet and animal images are a substantial part of this culture, they are not the only type of material. Babies, mascots, cartoons, animations can also be considered as part of the cute economy. But for the purpose of this work, I focus on pet images. Pet images within the cute economy are driven by the cute aesthetic, which creates a specific type of relationship between consumer subjects in the weak cute object predicated on feelings of care and empathy.”
By the way, as I'm reading this, some of these things here you're quoting, but for the ease of reading, I’m –
Julie:
Yeah, you're good.
Annie:
– not putting in the quotes.
“When one engages with a cute image, feelings may relate to innocence or help for one that cannot help themselves. Regarding pet images, these pictures may create an indexicality of wanting to care for the animal in question. An indexicality of care helps sustain the Internet's cute economy, and it has certain positive implications for pets.
“In 2018, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found social media has been a helpful tool for animal shelters, allowing them to increase public support and facilitate more adoptions. However, additional studies point out drawbacks. YouTube videos of endangered species and animals that should not be kept as pets are often cited as impetus for people to pursue owning such animals. Similarly, the lack of context and education accompanying pet images means that while viewers may find certain behaviors cute, like a dog chasing its tail, the actions may actually indicate distress.”
This is something I think about a lot.
“Similarly the cute economy is not exempt from looking relations with the most notable being black dog syndrome. The phenomenon that refers to how black dogs and cats are passed over for adoption in favor of lighter colored animals while black dogs syndrome predates social media, shelters across the US, Canada and the United Kingdom self-report that individuals specifically request any animal but a black one has increased in recent years with people claiming black cats and dogs are not photographable for social media.
“The cute economy is also intertwined with the entrepreneurial dynamics of social media. Lucas argues that within neoliberalism, there is a relationship between the cute aesthetic and labor and cuteness is a specific type of work used on social media to attempt to earn income. While Lucas discusses how women perform cuteness as labor, previous discussions of the fur baby identity in the cute economy show how performing cuteness through pets can also be understood as a similar type of work.
“While cute is the defining aesthetic of the titular economy, it can also be a mechanism for achieving social and even financial capital. This complicates the cute economy by allowing it to simultaneously exist as a metaphorical cultural exchange and attempted actual financial transactions, thereby problematizing the cute aesthetic’s purity and innocence. While cute is a predominant aesthetic and commonly associated with pet images, it is not the only effective practice at work. In addition to cuteness, this understanding also necessitates examinations of the effective stock individuals place in their pets and such affectation manifests through joy.”
Reading your work, it’s clear to me that this is A, not a new phenomenon, this sort of personification of pets, and B, that there's a real female bent to all of it. There's almost like an aspect of like, this is a kind of women's work.
Jessica:
Yeah, absolutely. and I'll tackle the gender part first. And so somewhere my husband will listen to this and roll his eyes, ‘cause it's actually an interaction we had that started me off on this whole research. We have two dogs,you know, of course we do, and I turned to him one day, several years ago and said, ‘I wanna make a Instagram for our dogs.’ And he rolled his eyes at me and said, ‘Don't do that. That's such a thing basic white girls do.’
And those were just like the magic words that got me, my research brain going, thinking like, is this a thing basic white girls do? What does that mean? How could I unpack that? Why would somebody make an Instagram account for their pet? Like I knew why I wanted to in that moment, but I began to get curious about why others would, so, yeah, my husband is very supportive. I'll also say that.
But what I found in that research though, is there definitely is a gendered bent to it. You know, the people I talked to, it was by no means all women or individuals who identify as women, but it is a very strong gendered component to it. And this is also by no means a new thing. When I started reading about this project, I started reading books on the history of pets in the west and particularly the United States. And I found that in the United States, in the 19th century, women used to write letters to each other in their pet's voices. So, if we see on Instagram today, people posting as their pets writing like, ‘Oh, today I went for a walk with mom and then I got some treats,’ people were doing this in the 19 or in the 18 hundreds, just, you know, with pen and paper, not with Instagram.
Furthermore, I found some really fascinating stuff about fashion where people would incorporate their pets into outfits they'd wear out for a night in high society. I just finished watching the Gilded Age. So I'm thinking, I'm thinking about –
Annie:
Oh right. I read that in your work. Yellow beetles? Was that a thing?
Jessica:
Yeah, there was a weird – and you know, I say weird in my, from here in 2022, but um, in the 1800s, there was this trend for women to wear live beetles as part of their outfits and of their fashion. And, but they actually like, they weren't just accessories. Like these women kept these beetles as pets. And when a reporter from the Washington Post asked one of these women, Well, does your beetle know you? The quote is, well, ‘she expressed anguish at the beetle not being able to know her.’ So I just find that so funny that everything we think is new is actually very, very old.
Annie:
Well, I feel like in the early 2000s, you know, when Paris Hilton was sort of the first influencer, and was always toting around a tiny dog in a bag, that was, you know, certainly an example of dog as accessory. But it does seem like we're in a different era now where people create these whole lives, like these fictional universes in which their pets live, and use it as a form of self expression.
Jessica:
Right. Absolutely.
Annie:
And your work talks about the different reasons why people are doing that. Talk to me about some, like the categories of why people create these – I mean, they really are often kind of like fictional worlds, right?
Jessica:
Oh, absolutely. And it's always so funny to me as a researcher, the things, when I interview people, that people feel really strongly and passionate about. And so one of the questions I'd ask my participants in the pet Instagram portion of this work was, well, do you write in your voice or do you write in your pet's voice? And people had such strong feelings about this. Like, it'd be the point in the interview, you know, we'd be on Zoom or Skype or whatever. And they'd slam their hand on the table and be like, Let me tell you why I do it this way or why I don't do it this way. So people have very, very strong feelings about the presentation of their pets and the voice they write in.
And some of the reasons I found for this is it is a lot about self-expression, like you mentioned. And the thing is with a lot of these accounts, especially these smaller ones, so not the pet influencers, not the ones with tens of thousands of followers, but maybe your college roommate’s Instagram for her corgi, right. We learned more about the poster than the pet.
So for instance, one of my participants told me the story where she had gone to a coffee shop to study for an exam and brought her dog with her and took a photo at the coffee shop with her laptop and her books and her dogs and posted it to the dog's Instagram, being like ‘Helping mom study.’ And then when she was on campus, one of her friends saw her and said, Oh, good luck on your test. I saw it on your dog's Instagram. Right.
So that tells us more about her as a person than her dog. So for a lot of people, this was just kind of a fun way to communicate that isn't directly posting, oh, I have an exam, but kind of tweaking it and morphing it a little bit to be about the dog and the exam.
Annie:
Which is kind of, it does kind of become like dog as accessory in that sort of case. Right?
Jessica:
It does, it does because the dog becomes kind of a stand-in, or the cat or whatever animal, becomes kind of a stand-in for the person. And a little bit, you know, I will say kind of like a prop to be kind of staged in certain ways. Again, I say this as somebody with her own, my own dogs have a pet Instagram and I do the same. So I'm not judging at all. There's no judgment here whatsoever, but yeah, you know, we do stage them to look a certain way on social media.
Annie:
What are some of the other reasons you found that people do this?
Jessica:
Yeah. Probably the most optimistic one, and I've actually found this in some previous research I've done as well, but I've actually stumbled across something rather optimistic about the internet sometimes. And that's, we are willing to take care of each other. And by that, I mean, you know, there's so much crap on the internet, right? There's people fighting over politics and there can be harassment and misinformation and disinformation. And just, there can be so much we don't like about being online.
But one of the things, and I talk to people who ran pet Instagram accounts hoped, was that they really hoped people just got a little break from that. So while they were scrolling, you know, doing the doom scrolling, they'd maybe just get a small, cute little break of seeing a pet, seeing something happy, seeing something wholesome. And for a brief moment, there's a little break from the doom scrolling. From the sadness and the madness and all of the less than nice stuff about being online.
Annie:
And I guess as a consumer of that kind of media, makes you feel a little less, I don't know, or a little bit more connected or, I mean, would you say that?
Jessica:
Yeah, I think so. And I definitely think it can make us feel connected even to people we don't know. So, you know, I'm very active on Twitter as well. And you know, so often on Twitter, and I talk about this a little bit in my book, people will say, ‘had a bad day, send pet pics,’ right? So like, so they wind up getting pictures from people they don't even know, sending these pictures to them just to try to cheer them up.
So I think it can help us feel more connected in that way. You know, I'm not saying pets are the solution to all the Internet's problems by any means, but they do provide these nice moments of connection and joy and smiles and a little bit of relief from some of the other stuff.
Annie:
I'm thinking of some accounts in particular, mostly run by women, that I find just hilarious and I've realized, like I've talked to our client Lola, Lola Barksdale who's owner is named Rachel. I had her on the podcast a few years ago talking about her account, because I mean, I knew Rachel and I knew the dog. And I just found her account to be, I still find her account to be really, really, really funny, in a way, like, I didn't really know that side of Rachel until I started to follow her Instagram. And I began to appreciate that it was a kind of like art form for her, and that it was also like, it was pegged to the dog, but also kind of arbitrary because, I mean, we project so much onto our pets and the dog that I see might have been a totally different character than the dog that she sees, right?
Jessica:
Oh yeah. Completely. Yeah, there's so much, you know, we project so much humanity onto our pets, and I, again, this is as somebody who loves her two dogs more than anything on the face of this earth. It's fascinating to me then how we kind of curate that projection onto social media, where it does become an art form. It does kind of become this–there's almost like specific kind of ways to write to pet Instagram account or share your pets online. Certain things to talk about and certain things not to talk about, even.
You know, for instance, people told me when they talked about quote unquote ‘sadder’ topics like pets passing away or rescuing a pet even from a tragic situation, which to me, that's kind of uplifting, but people would lose followers. Because they didn't wanna engage with the sadder kind of content. But so it is definitely kind of a little bit of a performance, a little bit of a curation, so much of the way all social media content is.
Annie:
What was the reason for you starting your pet's Instagram account then?
Jessica:
Yeah, so my younger dog, speaking of kind of tragic rescue stories, my three and a half year old dog Rudy was found thrown out of a moving car in Tuscaloosa where we live, and he was taken to the local shelter. So shout out to Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter for saving my baby. He had five leg fractures and three surgeries before eight weeks old to correct his breaks. And so now he has over 30 pieces of metal holding his legs together.
And originally we were fostering him and then we foster failed. [laughs] We just couldn't let go of this baby that we had taken such care of. Like, we got him, he was on 24/7 crate rest. So couldn't even go out of his crate to go to the bathroom. So it was just a lot, and I kind of wanted to share his story, because I thought, you know, this dog's been through a lot. I was posting so much about him on my own Instagram. And I was like, well, maybe I should make a separate space for my dog since I'm posting so much about them on my own account.
Annie:
I always think what if you had to explain to your dog, like, ‘I'm taking pictures of you so I could share it with people that I might not necessarily know. And speculate about what's going on in your mind. And that's what I'm doing with my time.’ And we make fun of dogs for sniffing each other's butts and humping.
Jessica:
[laughs] Right. I think if we could actually explain that to our dogs, I think they'd be horrified with us.
Annie:
You, you write about actually how YouTube has taken some actions against certain kinds of content about pets that people share. And I guess other other outlets have probably done a similar thing. How and why is this kind of content regulated?
Jessica:
That's a great question. And, you know, for as much as I talk about the joy and the cuteness and the fun that comes from sharing, there's, some negatives and some dark sides to sharing pets and animals on social media. And this instant, this one instance I'm thinking of in particular from YouTube kind of references that. I'm blanking on the date because, you know, I can't even keep track of what time is anymore, but maybe it was a year or two ago, YouTube banned just in general, the category of fake animal rescue videos.
And when I first came across this, I was kind of startled, ‘cause I didn't really know what it meant, but upon doing some digging into it, people were staging these really horrific situations for animals, and dangerous, just so they could come in and save them. And I'm happy to give some examples if you want, but I'm also happy to, to gloss over and just move on.
Annie:
Yeah, no, I mean, what's an example, and were people doing this without saying that they were fake?
Jessica:
Yeah. So people, well they would do it and then kind of at the end be like, haha, JK, I staged this whole thing. So it was instances of like burying kittens or puppies alive and then digging them out, or tying them to train tracks, or putting them in pens with dangerous snakes, and things like that. And then saying, you know, either in the description or kind of at the end that, Oh, this was a performance, this wasn't real, the animal wasn't in any danger, which is questionable.
But YouTube at the urgence of many kind of animal rights and welfare groups kind of put the hammer down on these videos and said no more, instances of animal cruelty do go against YouTube's community guidelines, and they now say these fake animal rescues, even though they are quote unquote rescues are still cruelty because it is a manufactured situation that's putting the animal in danger. So YouTube issued kind of an outright ban on this.
And it does get pretty, you know, kind of questionable and interesting to see how platforms do regulate animal content. Things like the pet trade or the trading of illegal animals on Facebook was really, really big for a while. They've since kind of cracked down on it and it's not as big of a problem as it used to be, though I'm sure it still exists to some extent. But then I also have encountered kind of smaller scale content moderation problems where people in cat or dog Facebook groups that are just here to share cute photos of their animals, get into some pretty heavy fights about what should or should not be allowed in these groups.
So it's kind of a platform issue. And then it's also like a group issue to decide, you know, what kind of pet and animal content are we going to allow in our space?
Annie:
Yeah. And it's, I mean, there's just flat out abuse happening too. I remember last year someone sent me these terrible videos, I think it was on TikTok of this woman who was like breaking her dog's leg on the video?
Jessica:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Annie:
And I was like, I don't know what – they were like, can you help? I was like, I dunno what I'm supposed to do.
Jessica:
Right, It’s like what do you do in that situation.
Annie:
Yeah. And I dug a little bit and realized that she had like 50 accounts. And so she must just get banned and then do it again, and do it again.
On this topic of the sadder stuff, you wrote a really interesting article for Slate about how attracted people seem to be to stories about Ukrainian pets.
Jessica:
Yeah. Mm-hmm
Annie:
Is this a bad thing? Should we feel guilty about this? That those of us who have spent more than a little bit of time looking at the pictures of zoo animals and reading about people rescuing animals?
Jessica:
You know, I would say, I don't think so. And what I wrote about in Slate and why I felt so kind of compelled to talk about this was relating to what I found in my research is, you know, animal images on the internet as self-expression. These animals aren't taking the photos themselves, right? The zoo animals aren't getting out of Ukraine themselves. So behind every animal, of some of the heartbreaking animal images we saw coming out of Ukraine earlier this year, and still do to some extent, there's a human.
There's a human carrying the pet, there's a human arranging the transport, there's a human who's lost everything except for their cat. And I think that seeing those pets, seeing those animals actually really does remind us of the humanity behind the atrocities going on over there. Definitely a lot of images of kittens being rescued from rubble. I think I remember some of people fleeing into Poland with their pets. They couldn't carry a suitcase or bag, but they had their dog, right.
So to me, those really underscore just the humanity of it, that these people are fleeing. They've lost everything, that it's something thousands and thousands of miles away from us in the US. But again, it's a human conflict and a human problem. And I think the animals help us kind of remember that.
So for the same reason, my research participant who talked about, oh, they saw my Instagram and my dog's Instagram that I had an exam and so they knew to say good luck when they saw me, you know, we can see these photos of the animals in their humans, dealing with tragedy in the Ukraine and say, wow, those people are really going through a lot.
Annie:
Mm-hmm. It's interesting. How the – like we talked about this a little bit already, I guess, but just, it's interesting to me, like the reasons people give for creating accounts for their dogs. It sounded like they kind of, there are certain categories of reasons people go online as their pets. Would you say that's so?
Jessica:
Yeah. So I think, you know, in general, people can do it to share information or they can do it to express things about themselves. They can do it to connect with others. They can do it to share joy, share cuteness, and some do it, too, because they do want to try to become pet famous and become a pet influencer. I talked to so many people during the course of this project that were like, well, yeah, we were thinking about getting a dog, but man, if we could make some extra money or get some free stuff, you know, that would be great. And you know, don't get me wrong, who doesn't like extra money and free stuff, right?
But yeah, that's become kind of a big part of it, that again, everybody thinks it's so easy to become internet famous, but it's actually quite, quite difficult, takes a lot of time and effort and work. And also a little bit of luck. The famous internet dog Tuna that’s like a dachshund Chihuahua kind of mix that has the really bad underbite? One of the reasons he got so famous was kind of in the early days of pet Instagram, so kind of closer, maybe like 2011, 2012, Instagram randomly featured them on their homepage one day and everybody just kind of fell in love with this quirky looking dog. And now he's an internet celebrity that's at pet con every year, the pet internet convention, and just has millions and millions of followers.
Annie:
You also talk about the “This is fine” dog, who is a cartoon dog.
Jessica:
Mm-hmm.
Annie:
Can you talk about your, your in depth conversations about, about the “This is fine” dog?
Jessica:
Yeah. My book when I first pitched it was originally called “This is fine.” And the press was like, mm, that doesn't make sense. And I kind of changed the title, and to their credit “The internet is for cats” is a much better title. That's why they're the professionals and I'm not. But yeah, I think, I think the “this is fine” meme is, if you've spent any time on the internet. You've probably seen it. It's a cartoon dog sitting in a room that's on fire, and the dog says, “This is fine.” And I believe the creator, the original creator was Casey White for his internet comic strip.
But the meme took off in digital culture and on the internet and in social media, as these things do, to kind of describe, you know, when things are not great, but you just kind of have to grin and bear it, the “this is fine” meme is a great response.
Annie:
Mm-hmm.
Jessica:
The meme resonated with me to kind of help talk about and explore some of the things I wanted to talk about regarding pets and animals on the internet is that yes, there's the cute and the joy and all the great stuff. But then like we mentioned with the fake animal rescue videos and the cruelty, there's some not so great stuff too.
Annie:
But why, like why in that cartoon, does it need to be a dog? Like, wouldn't it work if it was just a person sitting there?
Jessica:
I think it, I think it would have. But I think by the fact that it's a cartoon dog, I think it makes it a bit more absurd. And I think when we want to use that meme to respond to anything, you know, even just this week, I think I sent it out in one of my group chats , you know, it's still a popular meme. I think the fact that it's a dog makes it a little absurd because anytime we're using that meme, well, not anytime, but most of the time when we’re using that meme, it's probably about an absurd situation.
It's been used a lot in political situations, people use it in response to their, you know, favorite sports team not doing so well. I think it really shot to popularity in 2016, especially when we had a lot of, you know, celebrity deaths that year: Prince Alan Rickman, David Bowie. So I think it's just, I think it's the absurdity. I think it still could have been a successful meme with a person, but the fact that it's like a dog sitting at a table, which, you know, isn't something dogs – well in my house –
Annie:
Dog sitting at a table drinking coffee. Yeah. I dunno. I get frustrated sometimes about how – I mean, it's, in the book Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson, she has a whole chapter where she talks about how messed up we all are about dogs, largely because of Walt Disney and the the image of a dog that we were all fed as being this compliant, thoughtful being with humanlike abilities to talk and reason and please. That, and those sort of Lassies and Rin Tin Tins who effortlessly seem to understand everything that we want at all times.
And I think about it a lot watching shows with my daughter who loves, for instance, Peppa Pig. Which is a family of pigs, but they have not, like, except for the fact that they love jumping in muddy puddles and they like snort when they laugh, there is nothing really pig-like about Peppa Pig, right. Or there's nothing tiger-like about Daniel Tiger really except he roars when he's upset. Like, why do we, why do we need to, I mean, anthropomorphize, is that the right word? Animals. Why can't we just let animals be animals and, and, and have cartoon humans in these situations?
I mean, on the one hand, like they could see someone saying like, Oh, what's the problem with it? Like, you know, don't be a grouch about this. Don't be a, you know, Scrooge. But on the other hand, like I think it can lead to, mmm, this anthropomorphic view of the world of, I don't know, projecting our own values and abilities and…
Jessica:
Oh yeah. I completely understand what you're saying. And yeah, don't worry about being a grouch. The fastest way to clear out a party is to invite an academic and we'll make everything fun, sound complicated. I get called a grouch a lot. So, but no, I think you're absolutely right. Disney too, with the Disney dogs, the super understanding and obedient Lassie. I think after 101 Dalmations, and you might know that this better than I do, the American Kennel Club saw it was the highest increase in breed registrations in history for Dalmations followed by the sharpest decline, ‘cause everybody then wanted to go get a dalmation. And I found something kind of similar in my research with corgis, like the internet loves corgis.
Annie:
I know, it's those butts.
Jessica:
It's the butts, and what's not to like about the butts. They're cute. They're big. They waggle. It's adorable. Right. Yeah, what's not to like, but I think the internet love for corgis, and again, this is something you're probably more familiar with than I am, have kind of has kind of masked the temperament of corgis, that they can be some of the more difficult dogs, from what I understand. So one of the people I talked to said, yeah, I got a corgi, because everybody on the internet had a corgi, and they were cute. And I wanted the cute dog. And I was vastly unprepared for how difficult this dog was. She's like, I love this dog, don't get me wrong. But the reality of living with this dog is so different from the internet love for corgis that's everywhere.
Annie:
Mm-hmm.
Jessica:
So, yeah, we definitely do project our own ideas and beliefs. And that can kind of mask some of the more, the realities of living with these pets.
Annie:
Right. So what's to be done about it? Or, like what's the future of cats on the internet?
Jessica:
Yeah. What is the future? I definitely think we're gonna see an increased rise in pet influencers. Like not just people that want to be internet famous, but more and more actual companies using pets and animals in their marketing campaigns. When I went to pet con and did some field work for my book there, they were talking about how pets are the best influencers, because, and I quote, “a pet isn't going to get drunk at a party and hurt your brand like a human is.” So there is definitely interest there from corporations that I think we'll see a lot more of that.
Annie:
But they also have shorter lifespans than, you know, your 17 year old cute girl.
Jessica:
Absolutely. Which, have you heard about the cloning, how pet influencers will clone their pets?
Annie:
I mean, I know about dog cloning, but I didn't know that this was a thing in the pet influencer world. No, I guess tell me more? [laughs] I mean, cloning a pet is like $50,000, and of course you're not getting the same pet that you had before.
Jessica:
Correct.
Annie:
You're getting a, like an identical twin, right?
Jessica:
Mm-hmm. There is a Instagram famous pet. The account is Wander with Willow and she's got hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers. And I don't know if it was the original Willow and they renamed the clone dog Willow. I'm not too sure, but the dog got hit by a car and tragically died really young. And so they cloned the dog and continued the account with the cloned dog. So yes. So while you're absolutely right. You know, pets definitely don't have the lifespans –
Annie:
Wow.
Jessica:
– as humans do, people have kind of started to find some ways around that.
Annie:
Wow. Well then there's something else that's come up that I'm sure you must have encountered in your research is like, if you have – and I can think of people I know in person who've dealt with this – like you have a hundred thousand followers and an account named after your dog and then your dog dies and then you get another dog. Do you start a new account? Do you rename your account? Do you start like, is it worth starting from zero?
Jessica:
Yeah, no, I definitely have encountered this. And I think that tactic is to – there's often when this happens, what I found is the accounts will kind of go quiet for a little bit, like after they lose their pet. And which I totally understand. I will be a wreck for forever when I lose mine. But then there's kind of this rollout of the new pet. So, and it's typically done on the same account because the fan base is already built in. You don't have to start from zero followers, you've got a hundred thousand or so, or a couple hundred thousand. So your audience is built in, and then you can just introduce them to this new pet.
And I think it does have to be done kind of strategically again, that kind of performance and that art form that we're talking about by making connections in the beginning back to the pet that is passed, back to the pet everybody was originally here for, and then over time that can kind of phase out and then the account can be all about the new animal.
Annie:
It's a reality of having a pet that you will most likely outlive your pet. Yeah.
Jessica:
Mm-hmm.
Annie:
And for me, it's actually one of the places where this modern way of sharing about our pets seems most beautiful. Because when you do have a pet that dies and that pet has a social media presence, or you have a social media presence, I could imagine that if you do have all these followers online, that outpouring could be sweet and helpful and help you kind of feel like your love for your pet is being appreciated by others, or that your pet is being remembered by others.
But then again, so much of it comes back to me – you know, I think the very first dog training conference I ever went to, the Association for Professional Dog Trainers. It was in 2010. And I'm racking my brain now to try and remember the name of the person who was speaking, this woman was speaking. She made the point that the dog that I see when I look at my dog and the dog that you see when you look at my dog, those are different dogs.
Jessica:
Absolutely.
Annie:
I mean, we talked, we touched on it a little bit before, but any relationship, any relationship is really about you. I mean, I think romantic relationships, that's a realization. People can often come to that. Like the love that you feel towards one person exists actually inside of you.
Jessica:
Absolutely.
Annie:
And that's why like, being in love with two different people can feel similar because [laughs] –
Jessica:
Mm-hmm.
Annie:
Or for many different people. ‘Cause it's like, it's your brain chemistry, it's the stuff inside of you. It's not like this necessarily like special qualities that exist only in one person that spark this in you. And I somehow never really thought about that at all, or, you know, certainly not in terms of pets until she said that. And I see that with cats and dogs, et cetera, on the internet that someone might love, like I was saying, Lola Barksdale, you know? My love for her is not the same as her owner's love for her. And neither is it, you know, the dog that I see may not at all be the dog that she sees.
I remember we had one client and the owner was always like, she's such a diva, she's such a snot about things and da, da, da, and I mean, kind of critical, I guess. And I thought like, wow, if I had to use adjectives to describe this dog, those are not the ones I would pick, but that doesn't mean that they're wrong. I don't know. I don't really have a point in what I'm saying, I guess.
Jessica:
Yeah, no, I totally follow. Yeah, we joke – so my older dog is 10 and a half. And my husband and I joke that he's a wise sage oracle that just knows all, cause he's always been wise beyond his years. He was graying at one, like, he's just always been a little old man, even when he was a puppy. But like, he's not an oracle, right? He's not a wise old oracle. It's just, that's just the personality we've kind of attributed to him. And he is a dog. Just this week, this wise old oracle rolled in a decaying bird in the yard. So like, how wise is he really?
Annie:
So maybe the internet is just giving us a canvas onto which we can paint these pretty pictures we make about the animals we love. And it's just the latest iteration of a tendency that we have as humans to see our qualities in animals. But, speaking of Peppa Pig – I have watched a lot of Peppa Pig. I've also watched a lot of The Little Mermaid and, you know, The Little Mermaid wants to, for anyone who has not seen The Little Mermaid, if there is such a person, she wants to be a human with legs. And then The Little Mermaid 2 is about her daughter who's a human and of course wants to be a mermaid.
And I remember as a kid going ice skating and thinking, like, if I had ice skates as feet would I want to go to a walking rink and just – [laughs]. And I had a similar line of thought with Peppa Pig, where I'm like, if pigs could make cartoons, would they have like humans in pig-like situations, like would all the humans be walking around on all fours and like eating out of the garbage?
[laughing]
Jessica:
Yeah. I think my dogs could make an Instagram about me, it would be –
Annie:
Yeah, what would that look like?
Jessica:
Mom points her phone at us a lot, goes away for a couple hours a day, comes home, talks about teaching her human kids.
Annie:
[Laughs] No, but it would be like, if they could make cartoons about us, we would probably be in all the doglike situations, we would look like humans. Like we have Peppa Pig and her family in these humanlike situations as pigs.
Jessica:
Oh yeah. My dogs would put me in the backyard sniffing.
Annie:
I know. I know, be like, ‘why isn't Jess more of a butt sniffer?’
Well, what's your next area of research?
Jessica:
Yeah. You know, that's an excellent question. And so much of my past couple years has been focused on the book, my book, that I'm now like, huh. The world is my oyster. I kinda can go where I want next. But I have actually, kind of wrapping up some work actually on social media veterinarians. Looking at how veterinarians communicate pet health. So this kind of spun off the book, it wound up being too big to include in the book. So I'm kind of working on it as its own project at the moment, looking at –
Annie:
And what are the takeaways there?
Jessica:
Yeah. So that vets – again, it all kind of comes back to influencers and content creators. They kind of have to act that way. And so if you're a vet on TikTok trying to communicate health information about pets, well, you know, you gotta be dancing, you gotta be doing the latest TikTok dance. You can use the green screen and throw up information behind you. So it's kind of just looking at basically how veterinarians function as influencers basically, using TikTok dances to make information easier to digest.
Annie:
Wow. How interesting.
Jessica:
Yeah. I can send you that paper too.
Annie:
Is there one vet that I should be following on Instagram, or an example of like anything memorable that you've seen? I know that's hard to say because so much is memorable anymore. Like, can you name one TikTok you've ever seen?
[laughing]
Jessica:
Right. Yeah. So I like Dr. Hunter Finn, is one of my favorites. And he's like a small animal vet. And so he'll do the dances, talking about foods you might not realize are toxic for dogs, or if your pet's licking their paws obsessively, it might be these allergies. Saw some other good ones. I like the calf vet, like calf as in cows, vet on Instagrams. They're like a large animal vet that posts some really interesting stuff. But yeah, it's a fascinating world that kind of also brushes up against doctor influencers, dentist influencers, lawyer influencers, that whole world.
Annie:
Oh my God. Things I never even thought about. Dentist influencers. I'm sure there must be – now I'm looking at Dr. Finn, here. He has, he's wearing green scrubs and he has a video called Why does your dog lick its paws.
[video with music plays in background]
And it says it could be a few different reasons such as allergies. Oh, he’s really cute. And he's just like dancing.
Jessica:
Yeah. Yeah.
Annie:
This “infection or foreign material,” and he's doing like a – we live in a really weird time.
Jessica:
We really do. And for me as a researcher –
Annie:
You picked a good moment in the world to study, I guess.
Jessica:
Yeah. For me as a researcher, it's all gold. Like I also recently just this week discovered the – so are you familiar with NFTs?
Annie:
Oh yes.
Jessica:
Oh yeah. I think we all are whether we wanna be or not, at this point. The first NFT, or one of the first NFT projects was actually called CryptoKitties. So you could buy an NFT cat.
Annie:
Okay.
Jessica:
An NFT like cartoon cat. And then from what I understand, I haven't been able to get into the community because I do not possess any cryptocurrency and don't have thousands of dollars to buy an NFT. But you could buy this NFT of a cartoon cat. And then from what I understand, the community inside is kind of like Neopets. Do you remember Neopets? In the nineties where you could buy a little pet and feed them in the town village and like take care of them.
Annie:
Were those those little things like the size of a cookie that had little buttons on it that you would push?
Jessica:
Oh, those were the Tamagotchis. So Neopets is all online.
Annie:
Oh, okay.
Jessica:
But so CryptoKitties is kind of is – again, I haven't been able to get on ‘cause I don't have cryptocurrency – but is this thing that you could like buy this NFT cat and then raise it and like interact with others. And then they talk about being able to breed your NFT cat in this community. So I just stumbled across that this week and I'm fascinated by it, but don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet. So.
Annie:
It's a real cat?
Jessica:
No. So it's an NFT. It's just like a picture of a cat. But you can like…
Annie:
Okay…
Jessica:
I need to investigate more into it –
Speaker 2: (28:01)
My, my mind is…my mind is blown. [laughs] Well, maybe the next thing you should do is dog trainers on the internet.
Jessica:
Hey, I would love to do that.
Annie:
Because one thing, like in our professional course I've at times given our aspiring dog trainer students the assignment of finding videos and images online that are being wildly misinterpreted.
Jessica:
Oh, interesting.
Annie:
Because there are so many pretty basic, easily observable things that dogs in particular do to show discomfort. And of course every dog is different and you know, some dogs might do something when they're actually not uncomfortable, but by and large. You know, if you see a dog's tongue, for instance. Unless a dog has a mouth full of peanut butter or is kissing you or has just swallowed something, if you are seeing their tongue licking their nose, licking their lip outside of their mouth, usually that's a dog that's uncomfortable. And it does not take a minute to find tons of pictures on Instagram or wherever that people have posted that, you know, they think is a cute picture of their dog. Look, I can see my dog's tongue, where actually the dog is probably like, oh my God. Get that camera away from my face.
Or dogs yawning. Also something usually dogs are doing when they're uncomfortable. You can see tons of captions of people talking about how tired their dog is when that's probably not the reason why they're coming. That kinda thing.
Jessica:
Mm-hmm, oh yeah.
Annie:
Well, Jessica I've really enjoyed talking to you. Anything that we didn't touch on that you think we should?
Jessica:
I think we hit all the high points, so I appreciate you having me on.
Annie:
Plug your book again. And when and where. Well, I guess we know where we'll find it, but when will it be out?
Jessica:
So my book will be out this October. It's called The Internet is for Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives, written by me, through Rutgers University Press.
Annie:
Awesome. And what is your dog's Instagram account?
Jessica:
Yes, they are The Madd Dogs. M A D D D O G S, since my last name's Maddox, Madd Dogs, so you can follow 'em there. They, we are not insta-famous by any means. I think I have 20 followers, so.
Annie:
[laughs] Not yet!
Jessica:
Right? Not yet.
[music and outro]
