Dead Animal Influencers

Cloning technology has given pet owners the option to cheat death, more or less, and some are cashing in. This week CNBC reported on the dead influencer animals of TikTok and Instagram and the ghosts that replaced them.

Kelly Anderson’s 5-year-old cat, Chai, died in 2017. “I’ve never really even had a relationship with a human like I did with her,” Anderson said. “I was very distraught the day she died.”

Yes, it is distressing to lose a beloved pet. In Anderson’s case, the loss was especially painful: “I lost about 20,000 followers on Instagram after Chai passed,” she explained.

Rather than grieve like a normal person, Anderson sent a sample of the late Chai’s DNA to the Texas-based pet cloning company ViaGen Pets. Four years and $25,000 later, Chai’s identical genetic clone, Belle, was “born.” Instagram stardom resumed, with many more followers.

Another influencer, Courtney Udvar-Hazy, cloned her wolf-dog, Willow, which unexpectedly resulted in five genetically identical copies. Result: a million followers on TikTok.

Then there’s Tinkerbelle, a 5-pound papillon-Maltese mix with more than 800,000 followers on social media. Tinkerbelle, a rescue dog, has “been in the theater, booked national commercials and even walked in Fashion Week.” She is still among the quick (and rich), but her owner has already sent a DNA sample to ViaGen for when 10-year-old Tinkerbelle shuffles off this mortal coil.

Not surprisingly, the Humane Society of the US is against cloning because there are millions of wonderful animals languishing in shelters. They could use a loving home too.

ViaGen’s most famous client was

Barbra Streisand, or anyway her dog, Sammie, who died in 2017. No matter. A year later Funny Girl had two exact copies of her beloved Sammie: Miss Violet and Miss Scarlet. Who needs “Memories”?

Photo credit: Barbra Streisand via Instagram, and Sam Carrell