Big cheers for Boo
Facebook exec’s dog has big fans — from Ke$ha to a Kardashian
Khloé Kardashian called him “the cutest dog on the planet.”
George Stephanopoulos called him the “ultimate chick magnet” on national TV.
Critics called him a sneaky Facebook publicity ploy and the Wall Street Journal investigated his owner.
Stuffed animal maker Gund is trying to emulate him.
He’ll be posting pet travel tips for Virgin America.
He is Boo the Dog, the most interesting Pomeranian in the world.
“My name is Boo. I am a dog. Life is good,” Boo says on his Facebook page, which has 5 million fans.
Boo, proclaimed the World’s Cutest Dog, has become an Internet pop star and a prime example of how becoming a celebrity in this social-networking fueled world is just one Ke$ha tweet away.
Boo is a 6-year-old Pomeranian whose short haircut, big brown eyes and winning smile give him an irresistible meltyour-heart look. To say he’s cute is a vast understatement.
“He’s even cuter in real life,” said Abby Lunardini, spokeswoman for Virgin America, the Burlingame airline that
recently named Boo its official pet liaison. “He’s like a stuffed animal and he has a very sweet face.”
His Facebook page has so many fans, it would be one of the top 200 most popular Facebook fan pages — if he were human.
Photos posted on the page regularly draw tens of thousands of likes and comments. One recent photo of Boo and his “best friend” Buddy wearing black bow ties had 217,000 likes.
Boo already has not one, but two photo books published, along with a wall calendar. And there are plans for a paper doll book — so readers can dress Boo themselves — next spring and an “ABC” book for children.
No, he didn’t die
He’s even received the “Kevin Bacon has died” treatment, with hoax tweets of his gruesome demise briefly sending his fans into a tizzy.
Ironically, Boo’s instant celebrity has now shined an unwelcome spotlight on his owner, who had wished to remain anonymous and used the pen name J.H. Lee for the books.
But the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D tech news website did some digging and two weeks ago publicly identified her as Irene Ahn, a top finance executive at Facebook who lives in the Bay Area.
That set off a minifirestorm across the Internet as commentators questioned whether the “shocking revelation” showed Boo was the product of a manipulative Facebook marketing machine. One publication included a link to Ahn’s professional LinkedIn profile, which she has now made private.
No interviews
According to Chronicle Books, which published “Boo: Little Dog in the Big City” this month, Ahn is declining interviews because she wants to keep the focus on Boo. (Chronicle Books is not affiliated with The Chronicle.)
Chronicle Books publicist April Whitney said Boo’s “mom” never sought fame or fortune for herself and started Boo’s Facebook page as a lark in 2009.
Then in October 2010, singer Ke$ha tweeted that she had a “new boyfriend” with a link to Boo’s Facebook page.
Shortly afterward, TV personality and socialite Kardashian posted Boo photos on her site and wrote: “OMG, I just discovered this dog named Boo on Facebook and I am seriously in LOVE … If you’re on Facebook, go like this page because it’s beyond cute! I want this dog!!!”
Chronicle Books editors, noticing that Boo had by then 60,000 Facebook fans, figured a
“My name is Boo. I am a dog. Life is good.” Boo, on his Facebook page, which has 5 million fans
book starring Boo could sell well and approached Ahn about the idea.
“It’s not like she came to us and said ‘I have this plan,’ ” Whitney said.
“Boo: The Adventures of the Cutest Dog in the World” did well enough that it’s now available in 10 languages. That success led to the second book, which features photos of Boo and Buddy, Ahn’s older Pomeranian, touring San Francisco and spending the night in style in a swanky dog hotel.
He’s also gone beyond books. New Jersey stuffed-toy maker Gund sells an 8-inch version of Boo.
Boo has flown to New York and appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He wowed co-host George Stephanopoulos, who also called him the “Muhammad Ali of mutts.” The show even sent a crew to San Francisco to shoot a segment on Boo that aired Monday.
Being a spokesdog
With his book tours, Boo is a “frequent flier” that made him a natural spokesdog for Virgin America, said spokeswoman Lunardini. The airline has posted photos of Boo at the ticket counter, in a jet cockpit and in his carrier beneath a seat. Virgin plans to launch an online blog with Boo dispensing travel tips for pet owners this week.
Whitney said fans write Boo all the time. One fan wrote that seeing Boo’s book in a store helped her cope with a recent death in her family.
“Instant love!” wrote Jen Noguera in a hearttugging e-mail. “He made me smile for the first time in days … Thank you for making Boo’s book possible, which in turn makes me happy, which makes my daughter happy and helps us heal. It also gives us something new in this world to love.”