If humans have influencers on social media, pets do too.
Two of them in the Philippines are Chopper the shih tzu and Leet the British shorthair cat, whose videos have racked up millions of views, mostly on TikTok, with their cute videos just spreading “paw-sitivity.”
Interviewed by ABS-CBN News, Chopper’s owners, Jona and EJ, said they “never planned to make it big” on social media and only started uploading their two-year-old dog’s antics online to save storage space in their devices.
Chopper started to blow up online with his “Shapi Serye” videos, where he pretends to deliver parcels and makes friends with other delivery riders visiting his home. The clips in this series were viewed around 3.3 million times on Tiktok alone.
“We opted to make it public so he will be remembered by many. He takes our stress and sadness away, so we believe his cuteness will bring good vibes to others as well,” Joan added.
Like Chopper’s family, the fur parents of Leet had not intended tomake the male cat a social media star. “I just posted random stuff,” said the tomcat’s owner, Marti Pascual Salva.
Salva created the “President Leet” page on Facebook in the run-up tothe 2022 presidential elections, Salvi told ABS-CBN, featuring the orange cat in skits where he imitated candidates.
Leet, now 5 years old, gained popularity for his other videos. One video that shows Leet with heart emojis in his eyes upon seeing his “crush” has some 14.7 million views on TikTok.
Of course, fame has its downside. Chopper’s owner Joan said the worst part of their pet’s online popularity “is we have to deal with unsolicited hate comments.”
Leet’s owner said it was also challenging to churn out daily contentfor the 100,000 followers of their Facebook page while he goes to his day job.
Despite the challenges, these pet parents said their followers’ appreciation for their fur babies drives them to continue producing online content.
“[Our social media journey] was no hardship at all… We are thankful for whatever we have now, and we don’t have plans of quitting ‘coz we want to record the life of Chopper,” Joan said.