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Before you begin rolling your eyes and curling your lip in a snarl that comes afore you condemn my exclamation, let me just clarify that I’m NOT being condescending here. When I say ‘bitch’ I don’t mean the variety of women that have more lip than claw (though that would apply just as appropriately) but the canine variety. There are dogs that have more Instagram followers than the average Internet aficionado could ever dream of.

So, according to an article that I read in the September issue of Cosmopolitan, Marnie The Dog has 1.9 million followers and her owner insists that she’s a celebrity not an influencer. Her claim to fame is that she snubbed the World Dog Awards. TMZ headline: I’m too famous, bitches! Bite that. Chloe the Mini Frenchie: 131K followers and her claim to fame is recreating Oscar red carpet looks, including Bjork’s famous swan dress.

 

chloe-the-frenchie-

Chloe recreating Lupita Nyongo’o’s oscar look.

 

And all this raises a red flag for me because if we’re judging someone’s influence by the number of Instagram followers they have, irrespective of what their claim to fame is, then we’re as good as living in the loony bin. This is the odd age where your Instagram following is directly proportionate to your credibility.

I was at a party in Lahore where a socialite’s introduction was whispered in my ear as, “60,000 Insta followers”. Excuse me? Whatever happened to names and introductions that actually helped identify someone? All that this Insta definition does is establish the fact that the girl has enough money to flash her fashion brands online. It’s an example of how a good bank balance overrides good taste or again, credibility. And can I just add, without sounding sour, that a lot of what you see on Insta is as fake as a fashion model’s nose. Many a celebrity and star has been spotted shopping at counterfeit malls in Bangkok and Beijing!

 

Famous dogs take famous selfies: Marnie catches up with Demi Lovato. No big deal, just another saturday night.

Famous dogs take famous selfies: Marnie catches up with Demi Lovato. No big deal, just another saturday night.

 

I’m frankly quite sick of it all. News has been replaced by narcissism. The shorter your dress, the higher the likes on your post. I for one prefer Zahra Sandberg, who has an inbuilt sense of style and charisma, to The Blond Salad, even though they have a couple of million Insta followers between them.

Coming back to the issue at hand, it’s the bitches who have the following that you’d die for (which means pay for). So you can either make peace with the fact that you’re never going to be up there or you can resign yourself to a dog’s life by getting a pet you can peddle. You didn’t actually think the pups were operating their own accounts did you?

Aamna Haider Isani

Editor-in-Chief, The author is a full time writer, critic with a love for words and an intolerance for typos, although she'll make one herself every now and then.