An Instagram account called Fat Dogs of Delhi spent the past week running a 64-dog knockout bracket, borrowing its format — and its premise — from Alaska's Fat Bear Week, the annual contest in which the public votes on which of Katmai National Park's brown bears has bulked up the most before hibernation. In Delhi's version, the bulking is voluntary and the ballots are cast in Instagram polls.
Owners entered by direct-messaging the page a photo of their dog, its name and its neighborhood, and the bracket ran a round a day: the round of 64 opened Sept. 24, followed by single-elimination rounds through the quarterfinals, semifinals and a grand finale on Sept. 29, according to Homegrown and the Free Press Journal.
The contest has generated the kind of stakes usually reserved for actual elections. Contenders picked up campaign names — Kutta Singh, Mahakutteshwar, Gajinder, Gogo — and, per the Free Press Journal, Indian citizens have been campaigning in person with posters, trading accusations of rigged brackets and paid-for votes. One commenter summed up the emotional toll of the voting on Instagram:
"Crying that i can't choose between the fat dogs of delhi man they all make feel a visceral emotion like a ball of sunshine."
— comment on the Fat Dogs of Delhi Instagram account
Unlike Fat Bear Week, which the National Park Service runs partly to illustrate a healthy pre-hibernation weight gain, Fat Dogs of Delhi isn't making any health argument — organizers told Homegrown there's no prize beyond bragging rights, though they said they're open to someone sponsoring some well-earned dog treats. The tournament-bracket format has become a recurring internet genre this decade, from bears to dogs to whatever gets photographed next; Delhi's edition just happened to land at a moment when the city's social feeds were short on lighter distractions.
By the time the grand-finale polls closed Tuesday evening in India, the page had not yet publicly named a winner in the coverage available — fitting, perhaps, for a contest where half the fun has been the campaigning itself.
