When That Cute Doggy Photo For Instagram Costs You Your Influence

How far will you go to entertain your followers?

While commanding an impressive number of followers on Instagram can crown you as an influencer, and help you sign multiple contracts of sponsored deals, it is necessary to fully understand the gravity of the word ‘influence’.

It means every big and small action, post or opinion you share, has an effect on your followers, because you are being watched.

Why are we giving a sermon on social responsibility?

Because of this seemingly run-of-the-mill incident in Mumbai that led us to ask, what are the odds that an influencer will do something stupid or dangerous to get social validation?

Popular internet personality Rytasha Rathore, who has 60,000 followers on Instagram, landed herself in a soup when her Insta stories about a stray dog raised several flags.

‘Dog-Graming’ Gone Wrong

Rathore traveled with a stray dog (that had jumped into her rickshaw) from Andheri to Khar and dropped it there, all the while documenting it for her followers. The Internet loves dogs, and dogs with an influencer is even better.

But she was caught with her foot in the mouth when someone raised the question ‘how will the dog survive now that it's been moved from its territory?’

This pretty much spiraled into a charged up Twitter discussion (often with the hashtag #Doggate) where many raised concerns about the dog and some called out Rathore for being so careless for a few likes on Instagram. Some of these comments were also harsh.

What’s your favourite part of #doggate

1. “well, that’s on him”
2. “How can someone with thousands of followers be this daft about the basics of animal welfare?”
3. The very real possibility that they will bring back the wrong dog and leave two pups vulnerable

— Akanksha (@bootlegleia) July 2, 2019

It didn’t help that Rathore chose to make a ‘witty’ comeback with this insensitive comment.

Rytasha Rathod decided to share a ride with a pup this morning and abandoned him after reaching her destination.

How can someone with thousands of followers be this daft about the basics of animal welfare? And when asked, what kind of a response is that? pic.twitter.com/C33grvahGo

— Shagun Ohri (@ShagunOhri) July 2, 2019

Once she realised the , Rathore did call for a search party to look for the dog and send it back to Khar.

She also posted this apology.

But all this did little to redeem her on social media. Rytasha has put her instagram on private since and deleted her posts with the dog.

Meanwhile she is continuing her effort to look for the dog.

While we don't know if the dog will be able to return to Andheri soon, we do know that her social media reputation will take time to heal.