Stay away from bad influencers

Of all the jobs that the Internet revolution has spawned, for sheer uselessness, few can compare - at least IMHO - with "influencer." And here I'm talking about someone who's a pure, standalone influencer, devoid of any other talent or profession. I mean Ariana Grande's an influencer, but she's also an entertainer. But an influencer who's an influencer with nothing else going for them, well, all I can do is ask the eternal questions: Why? and WTF?

Anyway, every once in a while a story about an influencer drops in over my personal, virtual transom that confirms my feelings about influencers as ridiculous. Make that redonkulous.

The latest? Influencer Nikki Phillippi.

I'm not sure exactly what (or whom) Ms. Phillippi influences - my niece says she used to do makeup videos - but she has well over a million followers on YouTube and Insta who follow her lifestyle and family videos and postings. 

I do know that over the past week or so she's dropped at least a few of those subscribers. That's in the wake of their revelation that she and her husband Dan put down one of the dogs they'd been posting about so lovingly over the years. 

Phillippi and her husband Dan broke the news of their bull terrier Bowser McTrowsen's sudden death to fans on Monday in an Instagram post where they said they were forced to make the tough decision after Bower's "aggressive side reared its ugly head." (Source: Newsweek)

That "aggressive side [that] reared its ugly head" was understandably not something that a family with a baby felt they could live with, even though Bowser was understandably aggravated when little Logan was taking food away from Bowser. Not Bowser's fault, of course, that he reacted by giving little Logan a little nip that left a "little mark" on Logan's face. And not Logan's fault either. He's a baby. What does he know about taking food away from a dog? 

That leaves the parents, of course. Even them, you have to cut some slack when it comes to responsibility to "the incident." I know plenty of parents who turned their back on their kiddo for a nanosecond only to have something awful happen. And I can't think of many parents who'd be 100% comfortable having a dog that bit their kid, even if it's just a little nip, continue to be around their baby. 

But you can blame the parents for their decision to put their doggo down, as well as for the way they went about it, which was - but of course - to use their social media platforms to tell their followers all about the dire deed. (Their YouTube video was titled "We have some really sad news.")

In their long - too long: I only watched a few minutes - Nikki and Dan explained that they had tried to "rehome" Bowser through the local humane society but had been told that a nine-year-old aggressive dog was not going to ever get rehomed. And that, if he were, and did attack someone, the Phillippis would be liable. (This doesn't seem right on either account. The dog had had a few other incidents, but doesn't sound like an incorrigible. And how can the dog, once it's out of your hands - as long as you hadn't lied about its behavior - be your responsibility? But what do I know? I'm not a lawyer, and maybe it's a Tennessee thing.)

But what had seemed like a mild-ish, isolated incident obviously wasn't enough to justify putting Bowser to sleep, so Nikke and Dan  also talked about how many times in the past the dog had been aggressive, the times they'd almost put him down. Now, come to find out, Bowser has been and "extremely dangerous animal" all along. He's a bull terrier, better suited to hunt down wild boars than serve a family pet. He's "special needs dog" who can't be let out of the house. Ever. (We also learn that, at one point, Logan had pulled Bowser's ear so hard that he gave him a cauliflower ear. Bowser didn't react. Fortunately.)

Two years ago, a close friend was running in her quiet, residential neighborhood - on the street - when, out of nowhere, she was attacked by two dogs that burst out of a house when a woman opened the door. This was a savage attack, with extensive damage done to one of her legs. She was hauled away in an ambulance, covered in blood. She has had several surgeries, but there's permanent damage that includes a lot of pain. 

These dogs were kept in cages in a garage - nice, eh? - but somehow were loose when the woman opened her door and the dogs made their escape.

One of the dogs, which had been involved in a prior attack on someone in the family, was put down. The other, who knows?

My friend's lawsuit is moving along slowly, thanks to covid, but we're hopeful there'll be a hefty settlement. She's no longer able to run, and she's has PTSD when she sees dogs. (She's had many dogs in her life, by the way.)

So, yes, I know that there are some dogs that can't be around people.

And maybe Bowser was one of them.

But if the dog was so terrible, why wait around waiting for him to do something like, I don't know, attack their baby and do him harm well beyond a little mark on his face?

The couple also informs us that they're planning a move, which would have been really awful for Bowser, being that he's "special needs" and all. Convenient timing. 

In the video, the couple comes across - especially Nikki Phillippi - as narcissistic and self-justifying. This is "so awkward", she tells her audience, "so emotional." 

In addition to their YouTube video, the couple posted pictures on their now gated Instagram account showing them hanging out with Bowser in the final minutes of his life. Their baby, Logan, is right there with him. Weren't they worried about this "extremely dangerous" animal attacking him? What if Logan had reached out and tried to give Bowser one final cauliflower ear? Maybe they had already given the dog a sedative, but, seriously, who would take this risk? 

Who would take this risk? Someone who wanted to milk the situation and portray themselves as a dog-loving, Bowser-loving family up until the very end, with some Instagrammable pictures. 

My takeaway is that, if Nikki and Dan weren't caught up in this influencer thing, they could have just as easily have kept their announcement simple: Bowser had to be put down. Maybe mention that their baby was bitten. End of story.

Not this endless wallowing in their own goodness, their own grief, their own own-i-ness.

But, for Nikki Phillippi, Influencers 'R' Us. As she says in her video, "Sharing is my passion and my job." So, onward!

It could, of course, be worse.

Some of the commenters mentioned one Myka Stauffer, a "parenting influencer" who last year "rehomed" a special needs child she and her husband had adopted from China. Adopting this child had given her an important - and lucrative - story line: she'd monetized the adoption process by asking her fans to make donations in exchange for special content. Because, of course, adopting a special needs child from China is more interesting than just bringing up four bio kids. Yawn! But "Huxley" - as the couple had just unbelievably named their little one - had needs that were more special than the family could handle, so they "hand-selected" - their words - a new home for him. At least poor Huxley didn't suffer the fate of Bowser.

Ah, influencers. I can't imagine wanting to be, or allowing myself to be influenced by, any of them.

Remember when you were a kid and your folks warned you about staying away from kids they thought were a "bad influence." The message needs to be updated: stay away from bad influencers.