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As influencer marketing continues to evolve and brands seek out the perfect collaborators to promote their products, it’s pet influencers that are leading the pack. When it comes to online presence, these furry personalities are off the leash. Due in part to the rise of the visual web, pets have overtaken Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter with their fluffy photo stories about four-legged life.

Brands clicking onto visual influencer marketing and partnering with pets are barking up the right tree. By merging social media with the powerhouse of pet memes, and linking these to pet influencers, brands have discovered the online secret sauce for brand awareness, clicks and shares – but it’s not the brands making pets famous, it’s the other way around.

Forget the pets of famous celebrities – Ariana Grande’s mixed-breed rescue Toulouse was featured in a Coach campaign – it’s a dog’s life for everyday-turned-Instafamous pooches (and pretty sweet for their feline peers too).

Here are the 5 most influential dogs on the web:

1. My name is Boo. I am a dog. Life is good.

Boo, a megastar Pomeranian, has almost 46k followers on Instagram, over 4000 followers on Twitter and a staggering 17.5 million Facebook fans. He became an overnight success in 2010 when singer Ke$ha tweeted a link to her new boyfriend, Boo.

Boo has also featured in several picture books. Boo: The Life of the World’s Cutest Dog has been published in ten languages. In 2012, he was named the official Pet Liaison and spokesdog for Virgin America airline in a campaign which featured photos of him in an airplane along with advice for people traveling with pets.

2. Jiff, a Pomeranian powerhouse.

With 2.4 million Instagram followers, 1.4 million Facebook fans, credits in Katy Perry’s Dark Horse music video and Covergirl commercial, as well as his own range of Jiffmojis, Jiff – another famous Pomeranian – is the stuff (or the fluff) of legends. He’s even been called too cute to actually exist.

With that kind of fame, it’s no surprise that his bio reads like the classic Hollywood maxim: “have your people call my people.” Jiff is an extremely talented Movie Actor / Model who is available for Television, Commercials, Films as well as live appearances.

3. Chloe, proof that big influencers come in mini packages.

This fashion-forward mini French bulldog has collaborated with brands like Vogue, Martha Stewart, Barneys, Bow & Drape and Petsmart. Chloe might be petite – she’s about half the size of an average French bulldog – but with 130k Instagram followers, 45.9k Facebook fans, and 222k Twitter followers, her influence is clearly massive.

She’s been snapped living the dog’s life in 5 different countries, has featured in a Budweiser Superbowl promotion, and raises money in support of the Humane Society of New York. Plus, she’s really cute.

4. Toast, the toothless toast of the town.

Toast was rescued in North Carolina in 2011 and, because her teeth had rotted, had to have all of them removed. Her 354k Instagram followers clearly love her toothless take on the world (with her tongue lolling out in most of her photos, what’s not to love?). Having come from a puppy mill, this King Charles spaniel is a big supporter of the adopt-don’t-buy principle when it comes to pets.

She also recently published a book, Toast Hampton: How to Summer in Style.

5. Tuna: true beauty comes from within.

The underdog with the overbite, Tuna was rescued at a farmer’s market in Los Angeles in 2010. His exaggerated overbite and wrinkly neck have made him an online megastar, earning him some 1.7 million Instagram followers who champion his endearing physical differences, and help spread the message that true beauty comes from within. He’s also an ambassador for animal rescue. Order his inspirational tell-all book here.

Although there are many more dogs climbing their way up the social ladder, I think that’s all we have time for today. One of my favourite perks of the job over at Webfluential is getting insight into doggy trends and talent, as more and more pet influencers join the platform. It’s been fun to share some of that with you today, it’s an exciting time to be alive!

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Image: Bribetaking. Stock Illustration. Pixabay.com

There are lots of ways to get a university degree in the former Soviet Union without working for it.

One is to cheat your way through the degree. Another is to bribe your way through — pay off professors, deans and even university presidents. Still another is to buy a degree from a company that fakes diplomas. But the lowest-cost option — in terms of money and energy expended — is simply to list on your resume that you have a degree that you don’t.

Obtaining degrees dishonestly is not only widespread in the former Soviet Union but — amazingly to Westerners — those who get caught are almost never penalized. They just shrug their shoulders and continue in the jobs they obtained with their fake credentials.

How can they get away with it? Because, as Russia native Diana Bruk wrote in a commentary in Esquire magazine this month, most people in the former Soviet Union don’t care. In fact, they know that someone who gets ahead has gamed the system in all kinds of ways, fake degrees being just one wrinkle.

The commentary by Bruk — a former teacher — was in response to an article in Slate magazine this month about a number of Russian big shots obtaining degrees by plagiarizing theses and dissertations to obtain degrees.

Bruk was brutal but honest about the heart of the problem.

While many Westerners decry cheating, she noted, in Russia it is “a national sport and a source of pride, because in a country that is so thoroughly and wantonly corrupt, rigging the game to your advantage is the only skill that really matters.”

One of Slate’s revelations was that politician Sergei Naryshkin’s Ph.D. dissertation was plagiarized, and probably written not by him but by someone he hired.

The organization that outed Naryshkin was Dissernet, whose anonymous members publicize Russian big shots’ use of chicanery — including plagiarism — to obtain degrees.

The disclosure that a public figure in the West had plagiarized a dissertation, or lied about a degree on a resume, would almost automatically lead to his or her ouster.

All Naryshkin needed to do was deny the allegation. The denial by the former chair of the lower house of Russia’s Parliament and former head of President Vladimir Putin’s administration came in the form of a question: Why would anyone take a whistleblower’s word over that of the academics who signed off on his dissertation?

Dissernet’s revelation not only failed to wound Naryshkin, it didn’t even scratch him.

A decade ago, a Ukrainian politician was able to shrug off a similar faked-degree disclosure.

He was President Viktor Yushchenko’s justice minister, Roman Zvarych.

News organizations — obviously alerted by Zvarych’s political enemies — disclosed in 2005 that his resume included a phony master’s degree from Columbia University.

When caught, his non-apology apology was that although he had not actually obtained the degree, he had taken enough courses to deserve one.

He remained in the Justice Minister’s job despite a lot of cries for his ouster. His political career faltered later — but not from the faked-degree revelation.

Zvarych weathered the fabrication storm because most Ukrainians viewed it as part of the norm — the same way that most Russians view the Naryshkin disclosure.

Dissernet’s outings have succeeded in prodding Russian educational officials into stripping a few Ph.D. holders of their degrees.

But that has been just for show, a key piece of the evidence being that no big shots have been affected.

Although Dissernet is fighting an uphill battle against public apathy, I admire it for what it is doing.

I also greeted with admiration — and chuckles — a group of Armenian high school students’ effort to out corrupt teachers in 2009.

The students in the capital of Yerevan put up posters in public places such as bus stops containing photos of 10 teachers whom the posters declared were the worst faculty bribe takers.

In Armenia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, teachers routinely demand bribes to pass a student or to bestow other favors, such as pushing a student’s grade up from a B to an A.

The extortionists that students hate the most are the ones who fail all students in a class — even the brightest and hardest working — so they can get a bribe from everyone.

In the West, educational officials would commend students who out extortionist teachers.

But Armenia’s Education Minister, Spartak Seyranyan, got huffy about the bribe allegations, saying they had yet to be proved.

His reaction was a classic circling of the wagons because corruption in education goes all the way to the top in Armenia and other countries in the former Soviet Union.

The sad lesson in all this is that falsifying degrees on resumes, obtaining degrees through plagiarizing, and other forms of educational corruption are likely to continue in the region.

The reason is that too few people believe they can do anything about it. They see it as just another distasteful fact of life.

Armine Sahakyan is a human rights activist based in Armenia. A columnist with the Kyiv Post and a blogger with The Huffington Post, she writes on human rights and democracy in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Follow her on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/ArmineSahakyann

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The popularity of the Winn-Dixie chain of stores has remained for nearly a hundred years – a difficult feat to accomplish in the face of competition such as Wal-Mart. Yet, not only is this chain of stores well-loved, but it has also been featured in popular culture through the book because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo about a dog found in one of the eponymous stores. The book was later turned into a movie in 2005, extending the popularity of the chain of stores beyond its traditional south-eastern US market.

History

Despite its long-standing association with Florida, the Winn-Dixie stores weren’t originally founded in the state. In 1913, William Davis – the founder of Winn Dixie – started working in Clark Mercantile, a small store in the town of Burley, Idaho. In 1914, he purchased the store and soon afterward renamed it Davis Mercantile. However, grocery stores that accepted cash instead of credit started cutting into his business. So he took his brother’s advice and in 1925 took a loan of $10,000 from his father to move to Miami, Florida. He used the $10,000 to purchase the Rockmoor Grocery, which he renamed Table Supply a couple of years later. At the same time, he opened four more outlets of Table Supply. By this time, his sons, Artemus Darius Davis, James Elsworth Davis, Milton Austin Davis and Tine Wayne Davis had also joined him in the business.

In 1931, the second acquisition, this time of the Lively Chain Stores for a sum of $10,000, added 33 new stores to the Table Supply Chain. In 1934 William Davis passed away, leaving the company to his four sons. The company continued to move from strength to strength and in 1939 the four Davis brothers were convinced by Bill Lovett, the owner of the Winn & Lovett chain of stores, to purchase 51 percent of his business which consisted of 73 stores. While the period from 1939 onwards was lacklustre due to World War II, once the war was over, the company used this acquisition to reach even greater heights. In 1944, the Davis brothers moved the company headquarters to what used to be the Winn & Lovett headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida and changed the name of their company to Winn & Lovett.

For the next decade, the company continued its spree of acquisitions, taking over names such as Steiden, Penney and Margaret Ann. 1952 was a landmark year for the company. It became the first industrial corporation from Florida to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol ‘WIN’. In 1955, continuing its policy of acquisitions, the company took over Dixie home stores, which had a total of 117 stores, and changed the name of the company from Winn & Lovett to Winn Dixie Stores, Inc. By 1969, Winn Dixie had a total of 715 stores throughout the southern states. The checkmark in the Winn-Dixie logo was courtesy of another chain of stores that the company had acquired called Kwik Chek.

The 1980s saw a certain decline in the fortunes of the company. Winn Dixie had now passed to the third generation of the Davis family and Robert D. Davis was the man at the top. However, the time he spent leading the company was marked by flat growth rate in gross profits and increased competition from large chain stores as well as convenience stores. In 1988, he resigned his position as chairman – a position which was then taken over by his cousin A. Dano Davis. Despite these changes and other expansions and acquisitions in the 1990s, it became obvious that the company was struggling.

In the early 2000s, Winn Dixie had over 1000 stores. However, the stock performance of the company was extremely low, so much that it had to close 156 stores. In 2005, Winn-Dixie filed for bankruptcy and closed 326 stores including all its stores in the states of Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

In 2006, the company bounced back with a plan of reorganization that was duly filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida. In 2011, the company itself was acquired by BI-LO Holdings for approximately $550 million.

Brands

Winn Dixie is well-known for its Chek brand of soft-drinks. These include options for low calorie and low caffeine. Its budget brand is now known as Clear Value, while the Winn-Dixie brand is at the level of most national brands. The high-end brand made popular by the store is Winn & Lovett, considered a premium brand.

Philanthropic Endeavours

Since the death of William Davis in 1934, the company has had an association with the Mayo Clinic as the Davis family believed that William Davis’ death could have been prevented by better medical advancements. When James E. Davis read Booker T. Washington’s book Up from Slavery, he realised the extent of the racial prejudice faced by African Americans and Winn-Dixie started supporting colleges and universities that were considered historically Black.

The Stetson University School of Business Administration is another institution that has benefitted from the philanthropy of the Davis family. The Davis brothers endowed the university with a building named Davis Hall in 1967. In the 1990’s the company also contributed to the Boy Scouts of America of the Central Florida Council. The contribution was substantial enough that the Camp La-No-Che was renamed to Winn-Dixie Scout Reservation.

The Davis brothers through their influence have also had a fairly profound effect on the state politics of Florida. In particular, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Donald Regan venerated and sought the advice of James E. Davis.

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The 1990s were an odd little crossroads for gay entertainment. The dominant mainstream narrative — when it paid any attention at all — trended towards the AIDS crisis and tragedy. At the same time, far from the mainstream, the cottage industry of gay romantic comedies pitched itself to a greatly underserved market. These movies barely made it to a theatrical release, and it’s fair to say that most of them weren’t great films, but they were what passed for a niche genre back then, and that makes them important. Certainly, for a child of the ’90s, they were formative in ways both good and bad. We’re going to examine this subgenre one film at a time and examine what they said about gay entertainment and the era that once was.

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