Forget Shark Week, it’s Bark Week on Mashable. Join us as we celebrate all the good dogs, which we humans do not deserve.
Getting a pet to pose for photos is a universally practiced dance: the photographer, whether a professional with a DSLR or a proud dog parent with an iPhone, has to delicately balance maintaining the pet's attention, coaxing the pet with a treat, and snapping a good photo.
Now imagine that multiplied by 30.
Dozens of corgis (and their humans) gathered in Long Beach on Sunday morning to celebrate the birthdays of Arya and Geordi. The party, which included pup-friendly cupcakes, doubled as a meet up for a community of corgi owners in Southern California. Geordi La Corgi, named after Star Trek's Geordi La Forge, is five-years-old, has 297,800 Instagram followers, and touts himself as a "professional butt model."
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Geordi, dressed up in a festive blue lei, is having a heckin' good birthday.Credit: morgan sung"I have no idea how, but he just has the perfect corgi butt," his owner, Aiden, laughed.
Aiden prefers to stay as private as possible, and asked me not to disclose any personal information, including her last name. But working from behind the scenes, she says she often gets Instagram questions about her dog's perfect behind.
"He's got super muscular thighs, so he's pretty thicc," Aiden said. She attributes Geordi's bubbly derrière to daily exercise and a naturally fluffy coat. "We've had a lot of corgi accounts tell us, 'Oh, we've tried to trim our dog's butt to make them look like yours.' And I'm like, no, don't do that! Let it stay natural!"
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Aiden created the account a few months after getting Geordi as a puppy. She "didn't even think he was gonna get a hundred followers, let alone what it is now." Aiden and her boyfriend Onesimus started the account because a friend and fellow corgi owner suggested it, since a community of corgi owners planned meet ups in the LA area through social media.
"I feel like [with] a lot of the pet accounts -- nowadays especially since the whole influencer industry is so pronounced -- a lot of people want to get insta-famous," Aiden said. "I feel like they create accounts with specific goals in mind, but we didn't do that."
Even now, with hundreds of thousands of followers and international brand deals under their belt, Aiden and Onesimus are wary of letting Geordi be an influencer. Aiden said that although she feels "very lucky" for Geordi's success, "it's better when you don't have that 'I want my dog to be famous' kind of mentality."
He wants the snacc.Credit: morgan sungMaking sure that Geordi, as famous as he is, gets to live his best dog life is important to Aiden. We met a few days before Geordi's beach birthday party, chatting at a coffee stand in Aiden's office complex. The complex, a colorful open-air space with hammocks and outdoor seating areas, is home to several companies and looks like the stereotype of a young creative's workspace. Aiden, who works as an art director for an ad agency, appreciates that the space is dog friendly.
"I don't consider him to be an influencer," she explained while Geordi fell asleep under the table. "I definitely view his account as a bonus, but his life doesn't revolve around it."
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Although Geordi has landed brand deals with Target, Ikea, and a slew of pet supply companies, Aiden and Onesimus have zero plans to leave their careers to profit off of their dog's social media presence. She sees the account as a fun hobby or side project, only posting once a week and not really engaging with followers as much as most influencers would. She also doesn't queue up posts or plan content, opting instead to "just post" when an opportunity arises.
"When I meet a lot of other pet influencers, I kind of see them as stage moms," Aiden said, a subtle dig at popular accounts that make profiting off their animals a full time gig. "I try to stay away from that, but that's just me. I just want him to enjoy being a dog."
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Aiden tries to keep Geordi active mentally and physically, whether it's running through agility courses or teaching him new tricks. Since corgis were bred as herding dogs, Aiden says they need to spend that energy and athleticism -- which plays into her "just let him be a dog" mentality. Geordi has a perfect butt because, well, healthy corgis are supposed to be muscular. The tricks he learns and shows off on Instagram posts is less for the audience and more to keep him his mind active.
"Because they're such smart dogs, they need that mental stimulation," she said. "The amount of tricks Geordi knows is insane, and I'm not a professional dog trainer in any regard."
Despite her dog's fame, Aiden remains a fiercely private person. Although her own Instagram account isn't private, she keeps it for her photography, never posting photos of herself. In the age of social media, it's so easy for employers, coworkers, and total strangers to stalk someone's internet presence across platforms.
"I don't want to be that subject," Aiden shrugged.
Geordi and Arya, birthday pups.Credit: morgan sungShe even keeps herself out of Geordi's posts. If a person hasto be included in a video, she recruits Onesimus.
Although you'd expect more of an inner conflict between controlling a wildly popular Instagram account and maintaining personal privacy, Aiden reconciles it by not taking the @lacorgi handle too seriously.
"If he doesn't get any more followers, that's fine with me," she said. "Insta-fame doesn't really matter at the end of the day. With social media, things are changing so fast that for all we know Instagram could be dead next year. Then what?"
Which is why, for her, it's more important that Geordi gets to enjoy life than be famous. As he chases other corgis through the sand and begs for more treats at his birthday party, he isn't an influencer. He's a dog.
"You just have to view it as something to do now," Aiden said. "It may not last forever."
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