Under the influence of influencers

A big YouTube story hit the headlines last week, the chaos surrounded Brooke Houts, a YouTuber with over 300,000 subscribers.

The controversy was around an unedited clip of footage mistakenly uploaded to her channel, which appeared to show Houts abusing her Doberman puppy, Sphinx. In the footage, it appears Houts spits on the dog and grabs and pins him to the floor, applying force in the process.

I am not suggesting that Houts’ following would obediently follow her into animal abuse — but with a following of perhaps not epic proportions but a…