Paulo Rafael Maidl makes a living producing digital content inspired by his daily life with his husband and four cats
With almost 150 million pets, Brazil occupies third place in the ranking of countries with the largest number of pets in the world. The data comes from the 2021 IPB (Instituto Pet Brasil) census and confirms that a good part of the pet guardians You already know: animals play an important role in new families.
In recent decades, many pets They swapped backyards for couches, leftover food for premium food, and began starring in videos and photos recorded and shared by their owners on social media. With the emergence of the digital influencer market and its diverse niches, it didn’t take long for the segment to start finding more and more followers and producers of content aimed at animals and their owners.
One of these producers is Curitiba Paolo Rafael Maidl, 32 years old. Together with her husband and business partner, Jackson dos Anjos35 years old, manages the profile Rafa do Mikawhere he shares the daily life of a modern couple, ‘parents’ of four cats, who live in a small apartment.
The videos made by the duo and which feature, in most cases, pussies, are gaining followers: they are 1 million followers on TikTok, 176 thousand on YouTube and 496 thousand on Instagramthe business couple’s favorite tool.
The idea of creating digital content was born in 2021. Raffaelloalready graduated in Business Economics, he was studying Marketing when he started “thinking about the possibility of doing it with greater concentration and strategy”.
“We thought, ‘If we were to work with something for the rest of our lives, it should be with something we love.’ The most natural idea that came to us was to work with our cats, since my dream was to live with keeping them as long as possible.”, explains Rafael a Earth.
Him and Jackson they were already following the niche “because we really like cats, but we never thought much about whether or not they had the potential to make money. Our idea was that if we did it with love and dedication, for our cats and our followers, it would work regardless of the niche,” he recalls.
The idea worked. Raphael and Jackson They don’t reveal their revenues, but they currently live exclusively from the production of digital content. OR pet market – which includes veterinary products, from food to those aimed at animal health, hygiene and welfare – he stated R$41.9 billion in Brazil in 2022, and is expected to end this year with 10% growth, predicts the Brazilian Association of the Pet Products Industry (Abinpet).
The number places Brazil as third largest pet market in the worldbehind only China and the United States, which dominate 43% of the segment’s global revenue, the total figure of which was $149.8 billion (R$743.85 billion) in 2022.
Narrative creativity
With so many profiles focused on producing animal content, how do you differentiate yourself? Rafael’s response was to adopt a storytelling creative that also includes surprising feline personality traits: Mits, 11 years old, Bob AND Prettyboth 10 years old, and the youngest Coffeehe is just 10 months old.
“While we show everything in our routine, we are very careful to let the cats do what they want. Our job is to hold our cell phones as much as possible, record them and then tell them what happened in a funny way,” she says.
The content producer reiterates that the goal is to generate entertainment without “making the animal uncomfortable.”
“I would say the most important thing is to generate something of good quality for the viewer. Not at any cost, because I see many influencers creating comedy and content based on a cat cornered, offended, offended, insulted… Let the uncomfortable animal makes someone else laugh, for us it’s absurd,” he says.
Challenges and prejudices
Knowing how to manage exposure and judgment of people is one of the main rules for anyone who wants to work in the sector. But in the case of Rafael and Jackson, the fact is that they are one and the same same sex couple it also brings with it another set of challenges: prejudice.
“We have some points that make it difficult to attract brands that want to work with us, and this is a specific difficulty. First of all because we work with cats, which are “less appreciated” than dogs, which have a large audience of people (and consumers, for companies). And we are also a same sex couple. Despite the progress, we know that this has already closed many doors for us,” she laments.
Source: Terra

Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.