Instagram’s Army of ‘Cat-Fluencers’
Why humans can’t get enough of these furry “micro-celebrities”
Xafi and Auri are just a few years old. As is to be expected at this young age, their hobbies mostly include eating, sleeping, and making themselves heard. They like to play, both with each other and their younger brother Errol.
Despite their youth, Xafi and Auri also have an Instagram account where they keep more than 100,000 followers posted about their day-to-day life.
But Xafi and Auri are not your ordinary influencers.
They are cats.
Micro-Celebrities… Just with More Fur
Xafi and Auri certainly do not belong in the top tier of Instagram cat accounts. That status is occupied by the likes of nala_cat (3.7 million followers) and, of course, the one and only realgrumpycat (2.4 million followers). In comparison, the two Russian Blues (and their “furrfriends”) are more akin to what we suggest is Instagram’s “middle class” of cat-fluencers: accounts that are decently popular, but not enough to convey celebrity status outside the platform.
In her research on social media and self-presentation, communication scholar Alice Marwick has termed the human equivalent to these accounts “micro-celebrities.” In a…
