Reply All - #19 Underdog

Episode Date: April 4, 2015

Marnie the Dog is one of the most famous dogs on Instagram. Two years ago, she was near death at an animal shelter in Connecticut, now she has 1.2 million followers and hangs out with human celebrities.This week, we investigate the formula for internet dog fame, and look at how having a famous dog will completely upend your life. Thanks for listening. Subscribe to the show at www.itunes.com/replyall, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Help us with Email Debt Forgiveness Day by telling us about your email anxieties! Leave a voicemail at 1 [phone]. Also, to see an article about this episode on digg.com with tons more cute dog content, go to http://digg.com/2015/how-a-dog-goes-from-0-to-1-2-million-instagram-followers-in-a-year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last week, I visited Shirley Braha at her apartment in Chinatown. Hey. Hi, how are you? Good. Shirley's 32. She's had a bunch of jobs in TV. Back in 2012, she was about to turn 30. And she decided to do something she'd always wanted to do,

adopt a dog from an animal shelter. I started looking at petfinder.com, which is, of course, a website to find homeless dogs and cats. She found a dog she liked, this 10-year-old from a shelter in Connecticut. Her name on the listing was Greta, But her actual name in the shelter, like when you like sign the paper brook, it was actually stinky because she, she smelled so bad because like all her teeth were decaying. She was in bad shape. Her fur was matted. One of her eyes was clouded over. The shelter said she could no longer see out of it. She looked like she was dying. And especially the first week that I had her, it's like I would feed her. And then like a few minutes later she would just start coughing and just like, you know, making all these like really scary noises. And I just, I was really afraid she was going to die.

The only reason to adopt this dog is if you're an angel, which fortunately, Shirley is. So she brings her home, and stinky thrives. Even her cloudy eye clears up. She can see, and Shirley renamed her. Marni. She's a shitsuit. She's a shitsuit. Her tongue is always sticking just out of her mouth like a tiny flag, and her whole body has a tilt to it.

Her head is permanently crooked to one side, like she's just half heard a joke. Huh? She's adorable in a way that defies description. While I talked to Shirley in her apartment, Marnie patted around in circles, potted the carpet, and eventually curled up on the reply-all producer's through the Pinnaminati's jacket for a nap. After Shirley and Marnie's first scary week together, they fell in love. I'm very, very grateful that I have her.

It also seems like you love her the way a person, like it doesn't seem like lowercase L, like jokey love. Like it seems like you really love her. Yeah, I just bought a fire extinguisher because I was like, what if there was a fire? I have to protect Marty. Soon after Marnie's recovery,

Shirley began to do what any proud dog mom would do. She started taking pictures of her dog, sharing them with her friends on Facebook, on Instagram. Life was happy, simple, ordinary. Here's a short video of Marnie that Shirley posted Divine. It's just six seconds of Marnie

running around a pharmacy. Shirley added the music. But this is the crazy thing. This video has been played 55 million times. Marty's Instagram account has 1.25 million followers. Marnie is on pace to possibly become the most popular dog on the internet. From Gimlet, this is Reply All, a show about the internet. I'm PJ Vote, and this week, the magical formula for internet dog fame.

So even before Shirley started regularly posting, Marnie photos on the internet, rumors of Marnie's existence had begun to circulate. This is Summer Ann Burton. She's an editor at BuzzFeed, and she used to edit their animals vertical. Marnie's so special that even before she was on Instagram, there was like word of mouth about her in New York. Also, because I think Shirley takes her everywhere she goes, so she would show up at like parties and stuff, and people would talk about this incredible, magical dog. Summer wrote about Marnie, and Marnie's follower account shout up by Tha.

thousands, and then tens of thousands. Instagram put her account, at Marnie the Dog, on their front page, and from there they were off. The days when they could walk down the street unacosted are long gone. People stop them constantly. They're like, oh my God, can I take a picture with Marnie? They get so excited, and it brings people so much happiness,

so I'm more than happy to stop on the street. There's a class of celebrity who transcends celebrity, and becomes an icon. Bill Murray is one of them. These celebrities are incapable of doing regular, human-scale things because their presence in any place makes that place magical. If Bill Murray goes to the gas station, everybody who is at that gas station will talk about the day

that Bill Murray pumped gas for the rest of their lives. Marnie's like that. And she shows up everywhere. Here's a riddle for you. Who has a tilted hat and a bunch of very famous friends? Marnie! Everyone wants to be photographed. We are.

Instagram star, Marnie the Dog, has challenged James Franco to a selfie off. CNN, Fox TV, Good Morning America, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, the New York Times. When Marnie skipped the World Dog Awards, TMZ ran a story covering the scandal. Headline, Marnie the Dog

Rejects World Dog Awards invite. I'm too famous, bitches. Here's a partial list of celebrities photographed holding Marnie. Tina Faye, the entire cast of the Big Bang Theory, Taylor Swift, Betty White, Ed Sheeran, Jason Schwartzman, Wilmer Volderama, Abby and Alana,

from Broad City, Grimes, Joe Jonas, Lena Dunham, Demi Lovato, Larry King. Marnie does hotel openings. Marnie makes paid appearances at the birthday parties of her fans. So why is there this much fame for stinky old Marnie? Hello? Hey, how's it going? Good, how are you? Good.

What can I help with? As my friend Ergy told me, if you look at Instagram, you will find other celebrity dogs. Ergi actually owns one of them herself. some of these dogs hovered near Marnie's level of adoration. And I was curious, is there a formula, something that would help explain Marnie's sudden magical skyrocket? Erjean and I looked at a few of these dogs. She said, take for instance Boo the Pomeranian. I don't even remember how I discovered boo.

It must have been a couple years ago. All I know is it's like this perfectly manicured dog that looks like it's completely fake or a stuffed animal or is just genetically modified to be a mini-stuffed. animal that you got for your second birthday. Boo has 16 million likes on Facebook, but the scuttlebut is that he owes most of that famed to nepotism. His mom works at Facebook. Or there's another dog that Ergy really likes, menswear dog. It's this dog that wears clothes.

I feel like he's ready to model today. And on today's photo shoot, the five-year-old Shibri-New shows why big brands are so keen for him to represent them. Everything from flannel to bandanas to kind of hipster round sunglasses. with mirror shades. But menswear dog or Jiff, who's another famous pummerian like boo, they're kind of what you'd expect. They're beautiful dogs being photographed beautifully.

And anyway, none of these dogs have as many Instagram followers as Marnie. So what's your secret? Is it just that on the internet, the underdog will always rise to the top? Well, of course, there is another. Hi, I cannot believe we're... I'm so glad we're talking. I can't believe it. Okay.

Yeah, so we were just doing a story about famous dogs on Instagram, and it seemed like Maru might be the most famous one. Is that true? Yes. So this is Shinjuru Ono, who I talked to on the phone with our translator, Aya. He lives in Tokyo with his dog, Maru Taro. Ranking famous dogs on Instagram is less straightforward than you'd think. The site doesn't make it easy.

But everybody seems to agree that Maru is. Maru is the most famous dog. Maru is a very beautiful dog. Shinjuro thinks that Maru is this sort of exemplar of authenticity. A dog being a dog is the most beautiful thing. That's Shinjuro's ethos. And Maru Taro is beautiful, ridiculously beautiful. The archetypal beautiful creature.

The Sistine Chapel of dogs. A recent video has Maru squinting quietly. in a park, looking impeccably cute. The wind ruffles his poofy red hair and the sun catches in the gleam of his black eyes. Whereas, a recent Marnie video has her loping sideways down the aisle of a pharmacy, skidding joyously

past boxes of tampons. Shirley says that Marnie likes the aisles because she can run straight down them without bumping into anything. So, I asked Juniro, what do you think it is about Marnie? He thinks that Marni's cute, funny and interesting. Cute, funny, interesting.

Maybe this is just Shinjero guarding the throne, but he doesn't really have a compelling explanation for Marni's fame, for why Marni is now on pace, by my calculation, to overtake Marutaro. Now, my friend Starly thinks that Marnie's secret weapon is her backstory. She's not a bread dog, she's a scruffy shelter dog. Our producer Shruthi thinks that there's something about Marni's crooked body that makes you want to mother her. Ergy says maybe it's the great captions that Shirley puts on her photos.

Summer, the writer, who first broke Marnie, has this theory that Marnie just has a very relatable face. She has sort of like emoji expression on her face all the time. Like she has the perfect face for you to post a picture of her and say, this is me. If Marnie's an emoji, like what is she the emoji for? It's definitely the one, you know, the party face where it's got like one eye close and it's tongue hanging out and you use it when you're like, having a good time, bra, or whatever. She always looks happy and she always looks silly. Those two things together is sort of a magic combination. To me, all these theories feel right, but they feel incomplete.

They don't totally explain Marnie's magic. So here's my theory. It takes a while to lay out. But it starts with this fact. Last year, Shirley stopped working in order to spend more time with Marnie. Then she ransacked her bank account to produce Marnie-themed calendars for her fans. They were expensive. $5,000.

That's a scary amount of money to have, like, suddenly on a credit card. Yeah, especially, like, if you really don't have any money left. Yeah. Yeah. I said, if people don't buy these calendars, I am totally effed. Because not only do I have no money, I'm also, like, in debt now, actually. because I had to put things on like credit cards to like get those calendars produced.

The idea was that she'd sell the calendars to pay her rent. When she broke the news to her dad that she'd stopped working, he did not react well. I was telling my dad, no, I'm doing Marnie. I'm going to do Marnie full time. This is what I'm focusing on. He's like, I think he just thought that was like a really crazy idea. Like I was delusional on like stupid or something like, you know.

But her dad was wrong. And he started to understand just how unstoppable Marnie was at a dinner a few weeks ago. We went out to this Italian restaurant in the city, and I brought Marnie with me. She was, like, hiding in my bag. She just comes with me everywhere. So she's hiding in my bag. And then, like, towards the end of the dinner, like, she kind of pokes out.

And she's, like, looking around. And then the waiter was like, oh, ma'am, I'm sorry, you can't have a dog here. And then he's like, oh, is that Marnie? And then I think that was a moment when my dad was like, oh, she really is famous, huh? I'm like, yeah, dad, yeah. How satisfying with that? Yeah, it was really funny. Did they let her stay?

Of course. Marnie always gets her way. Don't worry about Marnie. The calendars, of course, sold like hotcakes. You can ask surely why Marnie drives her to do these things, but the answers you get aren't satisfying. Nobody's good at describing the thing they love very well. Marnie's specifics just disappear in the blinding white light of pure love.

And this is my theory. pure love, a love so powerful it hits any eye that wanders across her Instagram. We all want a piece of that love. Here's summer again. In love with Marnie as any human and an animal I've seen in person, I think. It's up there. I've talked to her about it before. And I think that when people talk about finding someone, I mean, it sounds cheesy,

but when you, like, get into a relationship and you're like, I found my person. I think that, like, Marnie is Shirley's person. They're just like right for each other. Every photo of Marnie, Marnie with her face goofily poking through a tortilla, Marnie buried in a basket of Easter eggs, Marnie in a tuxedo, is also a photo of the most loving relationship possible

between a human and their dog. Marnie as an agent now, the same guy who represents the band Sleighbells and Girl Talk. Shirley's new job is to be Marnie's manager, a job which would be much more lucrative if she wasn't managing the thing she loves most in the world. She finds herself turning down sponsorship opportunities that other dog owners would probably lunge for. Like Burger King chicken fries. I don't know. They reached out to me.

It's like, I don't really think that that fits with, like, Marnie's Instagram. I feel like she would eat chicken fries. She would totally eat chicken fries. She'd probably love chicken fries, actually. She really would. But they're not, Marnie's account is supposed to be about empathy for animals or, like, that's not what it's about. It's about Marnie. But an element of it is like having compassion for animals. And I think like, you know, encouraging people to eat chicken fries, it doesn't really gel with that. Right, because chicken fries are made out of animals. I did not even make that connection.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. I am so dumb. Of course, there's a grim question looming over all of this. Marnie's 12. In human years, that would make her a senior citizen. Which means Shirley's dedicating her love, her whole life actually. to something that can't last forever.

Do you think about what'll happen after she dies? She'll never die. She'll be around at least another hundred years, I'm sure. Marty? Before we left, we made sure to get a picture with Marnie. I'm going to help you. Yeah. All right, hold her like a baby.

Okay. You don't have to. Okay. She's a pro. She is totally looking towards the camera. Marty. Hi. Good girl.

People are always promising to give up everything for love. But it's bullshit. Everybody always has a plan B. And X they get coffee with, a pre-nup that they sign just in case. Nobody ever quits their job because they think that the love of their life is so perfect that all they have to do is share that love. And the love will provide for them. Shirley's done that.

She's all in. And yeah, one day she'll get separated from Marnie. But for now, Shirley loves her dog with a pure and uncompromised heart. And a million other people are lucky enough to get to witness it. Oh, she smells good, too. Taking a bunch, there you go. Thank you. I always take, like, a million.

I feel like she started cocking her head a little more. That was really just like the weight of her head. Back to the show. Hey, Alex. Hi. How many unread emails do you have? Two. Seriously?

Yeah. Work and personal? Yes. Seriously? How many unreaded emails do you think that I have? If I had to like wager a guess based on just everything I know of you, I'd say like 1,043. 1,093. Really? Are you serious?

Yeah. Oh my God. That's creepily accurate. Yeah, that's crazy. I want to be perfectly clear, though. Saying that I have read all of them does not mean that I have done the due diligence to respond to all of them. So I'm coming to you because I have an idea for something that I think could be revolutionary and huge, and that I really could not overstate the significance of.

It sounds like you're doing a pretty good job of overstating the significance of whatever this might be. I have an idea for a national holiday that sort of requires something of listeners to our show. Okay. So the idea that I have is for a national holiday called Email Debt Forgiveness Day. I like it already because I like having any debt that I might have forgiveness. This is not a day that people declare email bankruptcy. It's not like a day where you just delete all your emails and don't answer them. It's a day about specific emails. Like the specific emails that you have not responded to because they're somehow like loaded with an emotion and the emotion makes you feel off responding and you put off responding and eventually it's just been so long that you feel like you can't answer it because it would be too weird. Can you give me an example of an email like that that that you have? I can give you an example of one that I think you would not have a hard time responding to that I got last night.

Okay. All right. So it's from my friend Nicole. Subject line reply all. She's saying like, hey, good job on the podcast. I'm really liking it. I hope you feel good about it. It's just like a nice email for my friend. Why would you have a hard time responding to that? She's like somebody who was sort of like my teacher at one point. And so I have a lot of respect for her and it means a lot that she would like it. And it's just like a sort of emotionally complicated email. And it would take me a while to sit down and think about it and write it. And so what is pretext? probably going to happen is I'm going to not do that. And because I won't do it for a few days, I'll start to feel weird and I'll feel like it has to be really good since it was a few days. And then it'll be a few months. And then, like, I will start to dread seeing her name anywhere and I'll worry about running into her. And if I do run into her, I will just ramble about how bad I feel about not answering this email, which she probably will not have thought about since she sent it.

I have one of these right now. It's kind of stressing me out. Let me find it. Hold on just a second. All right, what's the subject line? June tunes, question mark. Dearest bandmates, I hope all as well. Goldman, congratulations to you and Sarah on your new baby. I just wanted to let you all know that I will be moving to Kentucky at the end of June, and I wanted to ask what you thought about

one more kick-ass goodbye bonanza, wherein my band. You have a pop-punk band? It's not a pop-punk band. You have a band that some might consider a pop-punk band. No one would consider it. Pop punk. You have a band.

Yeah. And your band is relatively defunct. And I get the sense that, like, maybe you don't want to play one more show. And they're saying, like, hey, let's play one more show. I just don't want to practice. It's going to take three practices. It fills me with anxiety. Everybody else lives in Brooklyn and I live in New Jersey, so I'm going to have to drive there.

And, I mean, on top of just all the practice stuff, I just feel really busy because, like, I'm married to reply all right now. Also, your wife. I'm married to. to work and a new kid. You married your kid? And my wife. You're not allowed to marry your kid. I really just want to take this one again.

And I will say that I do want to do it. It's just the anxiety of having to say yes and then start preparing is causing me to not answer this. Okay. So I want April 30th to be Email Debt Forgiveness Day. And the way it works is that you can email who, you've been meaning to email and been emotionally paralyzed and unable to email, and you're allowed to email them as if you are responding to their email in a timely fashion. You just send an email to them. You include a link to an explanation of the holiday, which we'll have at our website,

replyall.como, and you can just pick up the conversation as if no time has passed. It sounds like something that not only do you and I need, but it sounds like something the world needs. We're also interested to hear about what emails people are having a hard time sending. And so we set up a voicemail. The number is 911-475-6668. And if you decide to send an email or thinking about sending an email or if you receive an email because of this, then please give us a call and leave a message. Maybe we'll put it on the show.

I encourage all of you to participate because it's only through your participation. that people will not be furious at PJ and I for picking an arbitrary date one day a year to just send all the emails we've been too scared to send. Yeah, make us look normal. Reply all is me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. We were produced this week by Tim Howard, Surrethi Pinnameney and edited by Alex Bloomberg. Matt Lieber is a pregnant pause before good news. Our show was mixed by the Reverend John DeLore.

Special thanks this week to Sylvie Douglas, Ayakato, and Fuku. Our theme song is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder, and our ad music is by Build Buildings. We are on so many websites. We're doing a Reddit AMA on Friday if you want to drop in. You can hear the show on iTunes.com slash Reply All or on Tune In, where apparently there's now a channel that plays Gimlet Podcasts 24 hours a day. And we put extra adorable dog photos from this episode on Dick. Our website is Replyall.como, which was designed in partnership with a podcast. athletics. Do you listen to all of the credits? Because if so, you're fantastic. Please tweet the

word discretion at Alex Goldman without any explanation. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.