Wade Vandervort / Special to The Sunday
Chubbs the Wampug, 14, and her owner, Kristen Andrews, pose for a photograph in Las Vegas on Saturday, July 29, 2017. Chubbs went viral in 2011 with a YouTube video in a “Star Wars” costume and has since amassed an impressive social media following.
Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 | 2 a.m.
Perched atop a pool floaty, surrounded by hundreds of rubber duckies with names scrawled on their undersides, Chubbs the Wampug waits for her cue.
When it arrives — in the form of a plastic bag full of cookies — the rotund pug throws her head up and settles her weight on her front legs, punctuated by a signature grunt. It’s just what owner Kristen Andrews and her helpers for the day’s Facebook Live video shoot were hoping for.
“Oh, she knows when that camera comes out, it’s time to get paid,” Andrews says later. “She gets paid well, in snackies.”
USING INFLUENCE FOR GOOD
Chubbs leverages her online engagement to raise money for nonprofit organizations and people in need. The dog once brought in thousands of dollars for a pug lover diagnosed with leukemia. “My life is helping animals,” says Andrews, who sees Chubbs as a poster dog for senior pets, who often get passed up for adoption. “All this has been a natural extension of that.”
Andrews sometimes opens up about the health issues associated with caring for an elderly pug, including the fact that Chubbs is incontinent and has to wear diapers. Once she let the dog’s followers see that, people across the world reached out for insights on helping their pets with age-related challenges. The hundreds of rubber duckies? Those were part of a raffle that raised more than $10,000 for the Wyoming Pug Rescue. The name on the winning duck won a trip to Las Vegas to meet Chubbs, and people from as far as Australia donated.
Chubbs is a celebrity of sorts. Pictures and videos of the 14-year-old dog wearing costumes, eating strawberries and just lounging about looking adorable garner tens of thousands of likes every time they’re posted on social media. More than 108,000 people follow her on Facebook, and an additional 57,600 do on Instagram.
Reaching those numbers, and sometimes far beyond, has turned dozens of animals into viral sensations and enduring social media influencers. Other famous pugs include Doug the Pug (5.9 million Facebook followers), Minnie & Max (1.4 million) and the Bumblesnot (46,841).
In New York City, a talent agency specializes in social-media celebrity animals. Doug the Pug’s self-described “momager” has gotten him a book deal, appearances in music videos and stints on the red carpet, including holding his own meet-and-greet booth next to recording artists at the American Country Music Awards in Las Vegas.
Andrews has never had aspirations of that level of fame for her pup.
“You can’t plan this kind of thing,” she says. “You can’t take it too seriously.”
Chubbs does have an online store where fans can purchase memorabilia, but Andrews says it has never brought in more money than it takes to create her arsenal of elaborate costumes. One — the villain Kylo Ren from “Star Wars” — involved 3-D printing a tiny light saber and pug-sized face mask. Another “Star Wars” costume — the perfect likeness of a horned bantha — took a year to create from concept to execution.
It was “Star Wars” that launched Chubbs to stardom. Andrews, a veterinarian who owns a hospital in Kingman, Ariz., and spends weekends in Las Vegas, had been posting photos of Chubbs on the business’ Facebook page to promote specials or spread holiday cheer. In 2011, she turned Chubbs into a wampa, the snow beast hoping to eat Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back.” A short video of her waddling through the house in costume went viral, getting shared across the internet through news organizations and social media. A Swedish phone company even used the photo in an ad. And that 36-second video now has almost 1.7 million views.
Andrews saw opportunity — to bond more with her dog through the process of taking silly photos, to make people happy by sharing those shots, and to spread a little knowledge about caring for an elderly dog.
“I just love my dog,” Andrews says, “and I love sharing her.”
‘THE RANDOMNESS OF VIRALITY’
Andrews says there’s no formula for what goes bananas on the internet, but she offered some pointers:
1. “Go with the personality your pet has — just roll with that.” Rather than invent a persona for your animal friend, let whatever he or she is shine. Inventing a voice, however, can be hilarious. Andrews has a Chubbs voice that appears in videos, and it’s part of the schtick. “If Chubbs were a person, she would be this diva of divas.”
2. Production is overrated. It’s often the random, spontaneous clips that go viral. For example, the video that made Chubbs famous was just her running around the house in a costume. When Andrews and her husband created a frame-for-frame tribute to a famous “Star Wars” scene with Chubbs in the same costume, it got about 20 percent of the viewership. “Don’t invest a lot. Time is one thing. Money? Most of this stuff has been done on an iPhone.”
3. Keep it short. Every now and then, a long video strikes the right chord, but viewers generally love the unedited short-and-sweeters.
4. Keep it relevant. Maybe it’s enough for your animal to be cute, but adding references to pop culture or current events hooks viewers.
5. Keep it simple. Andrews has serious costuming skills, but she pointed out the success of that cat with a lime on its head. She also mentioned that a video of Chubbs pooping in her bath got almost 300,000 Instagram views in five days. “People always ask what tricks she knows. Uh, she can make snackies disappear?”
6. Be ready to take lots of pics. Photo gold of Chubbs is sometimes captured on the first snap, and sometimes after the 20th. “People think that she’s happy all the time, but you should see all the outtakes to get that perfect one. I’m looking for something specific or just getting her in focus or looking at the camera.”
7. “A lot of virality is just being in the right place at the right time.”
8. Do this for love and fun, not fame and money. “My dog cracks me up every day. It’s just your dog being your dog, and it’s just funny to you. It has given me so much. ... It is a life story of her.”
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