Cat who made more money than Nicole Kidman

Last 2012, a grumpy cat had become viral and almost everybody with social media accounts have used Tardar Sauce’s image to share their amusements. Because of the sensation, grumpy cat has reportedly made $100 million since 2012 and still counting.

Tardar Sauce if you haven’t known yet, is the real name of the grumpy cat whose grumpy face will forever be that way because she was born with an underbite and dwarfism. She is owned by Tabatha Bundesen of Morristown, Arizona; and her first image was posted on Reddit last September 22, 2012 by her brother, Bryan.

Her online popularity grew because of the memes created from her images, which led to the making of best-selling books that led to more awards in the pet industry where grumpy cat is “the face” of Friskies, which then led to the making of a movie.

Now that she’s a millionaire, you think she’s happy? No way, grumpy cat will always be grumpy despite of her fame and wealth.  She even earned more than the Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and one of the famous top footballers, Christiano Ronaldo for last year up to this year in terms of revenue.

You think she’s going to stop there? No, just after finishing her latest movie “Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever”, her stardom will continue as she is now on a commercial project for iced coffee called Grumppuccino (you better NOT serve this coffee to your already grumpy boss).

If you want her for your project, grumpy cat will say “NO” of course, but try talking to her agent Ben Lashes, he just might hear you out.

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In Memoriam: Obituaries for Rich Singapore’s Pets

(While some people are overlooked)

The Straits-Times “Pets Corner” will now host goodbye obituaries by loving owners to their beloved pets.

This move was said to be motivated by wealthy Singapore’s rich population having less and less kids, the attention instead being devoted to pets.

This is just an extension of Singapore’s famous lavish doting on pets. This attention and loving care for pets resulted in the rise of industries catering to consumers wishing to give “premium” everything to their pets. Hence the rise in the popularity of premium pet food, premium pet accessories and premium pet fashion.

The obituaries carry premium prices too, each at about S$50 ($40.94) with an added 7 percent in goods and services tax.

Meanwhile, this pet doting boom in Singapore also led to the rise in migrant workers hired solely to take care of rich pets. Which, in a way, can be said to be also a boon for poorer countries.

When roles get reversed

But sometimes the love of animals can exceed compassion for people. Witness this comment from a Singaporean pet forum:

“I was riding my bike back home from office towards and before Great World City that stretch of road and I saw two beautiful Golden Retrievers crossing the road handled by a maid. This STUPID maid was pulling hard on the leash of one of the Retrievers, The dog refused to move on and the pull was hard.

“I really hope the owner of the dogs should handle the dogs personally. Maid [sic] cannot be trusted. I feel like putting a leash on the maid and give a hard pull and let her knows [sic] the feel of it.”
In fairness, other members of the forum chimed in to soothe the original thread poster, telling her golden retrievers are naturally stubborn so she shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
But then there’s no denying the spirit of the times, as shown in the tagline of one of the forum’s moderators:

“Children are for people who can’t have dogs - Anon”

Treating pets like people while people are treated like animals cannot be called progress. It is a form of poverty — of the spirit.

But all is not lost

Recent protests over Singapore Zoo’s newest Giant Panda Pair is a sign of Singapore’s growing animal rights advocacy community. With this kind of compassion at hand, there’s still a chance it would trickle down to Singapore’s sizable (roughly one out of three) migrant worker population.

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