The Dodo

The Dodo is an American YouTube channel and media brand dedicated to spreading the appreciation of animals. They upload a variety of videos documenting different species with the aim of making the love for animals a "viral cause" and proving to their audience the importance of helping animals in need.
They have two additional channels: one in Spanish (El Dodo), and one aimed at children (Dodo Kids).
==About==
The Dodo is an American media brand focused on telling animals' stories and animal rights issues. The Dodo was launched in January 2014 by Izzie Lerer, the daughter of media executive Kenneth Lerer. The Dodo has become one of the most popular Facebook publishers, garnering 1 billion video views from the social network in November 2015. The Dodo is headquartered in New York, New York.
==History==
The company—named after the first recorded species that humans drove to extinction— was founded by Lerer out of "a personal passion for the subject manner..." Lerer has a PhD in animal studies with a focus on animal ethics and human relationships from Columbia University, and launched the website after noticing the viral success of animal videos online but seeing no one "really owned the space." In late 2017, The Dodo launched "El Dodo," its first non-English language channel to reach Spanish speaking audiences. The Dodo's editorial and video production staff unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East in April 2018.
The brand expanded into longer-form storytelling with its first TV series, "Dodo Heroes" on Animal Planet in June 2018, which went on to become the network's top-performing freshman series and was picked up for a second season in 2019. In June 2018, The Dodo held its first ever "Best Dog Day Ever" pop-up event in New York City, which attracted over 1400 dogs and their owners. Based on the one day event's success, The Dodo decided to expand the franchise in 2019 for a month-long "Best Dog Day Ever: Halloween Edition" event in the fall for Tri-State dogs.
In July 2019, The Dodo partnered with VidCon for the conference's first-ever co-programmed section, "The Dodo Pet Zone" featuring some of the Internet's most-famous animals.[17] In the summer of 2019, the animal brand launched its children's brand, "Dodo Kids," with a new YouTube channel with launch sponsor Paramount Pictures' "Dora and the Lost City of Gold up her Nose," and a bespoke content slate of new kids series including "Best Animal Friends," "Dodo Sing Dodo Dance," and "Rescued!". Soon thereafter, The Dodo announced its new Netflix Original series, "Izzy Bee's Koala World," which debuts in 2020.
In July 2019, The Dodo partnered with Instagram to develop an IGTV-first series for teens, "You Know Me...Now Meet My Pet" featuring young Instagram influencers and their pets. In September 2019, The Dodo pushed into children's book publishing with Scholastic with three books based on the video series. In April 2020, they debuted a new podcast called "An Animal Saved My Life", produced through iheartradio.
==Content==
The Dodo produces a variety of content, all of which centers around the appreciation of animals and sometimes videos of animals being rescued. They document an array of different species: Wild animals such as tigers, lions, and elephants; pets such as dogs, cats, and hamsters; and farm animals (usually rescued from farms or slaughterhouses) such as cows, pigs, horses, sheep, and goats. Most of these are gathered from third party sources, you can submit a story for the The Dodo through their website.
==Statistics==
===Main Channel===
"The Dodo" has 12.8M subscribers. They have over 7,200 videos, 7 of which have over 50M views and 2 of those have over 100M views. their most viewed one is a 36 second video titled "Babies Laughing At Pets" with over 180M views. Their most viewed short is 33 seconds long and is titled "Protective Dog Dad Won't Let Anyone Near His Puppy" and has almost 20M views, they have 6 shorts with over 10M views. Their most viewed video that is over 10 minutes long is titled "150-Pound German Shepherd Loses 50 Pounds" and has 39M views. They have in total over 8 billion views on their channel.
===Spanish Channel===
"El Dodo" has 1.48M subscribers. They have over 2,400 videos, 6 of which have over 10M views and 4 of those have over 20M views. their most viewed one is a 3 minute video titled "Hombre salva una escuela entera de pequeños peces globo atascados" with over 33M views. Their most viewed short is 33 seconds long and is titled "Chihuahua quiere más besos" and has over 400k views, they have 3 shorts with over 100k views.
===Kids Channel===
"Dodo Kids" has 1.12M subscribers. They have over 470 videos, 16 of which have over 10M views and 6 of those have over 15M views. their most viewed one is an almost 4 minute video titled "Little Dog With No Front Legs Gets The Tiniest Set of Wheels " with almost 60M views. Their most viewed short is 38 seconds long and is titled "Relax With A Baby Hedgehog" and has 725k views, they have 9 shorts with over 200k views. Their most viewed video that is over 10 minutes long is titled "85 Minutes Of Animals Who Are Absolutely Obsessed With Each Other" and is a complication over an hour long, it has 15M views.
==Series==
The Dodo has several series showcasing a specific type of content. These are:
*Adoption Day
*Adopt Me!
*Best Of
*Cat Crazy
*Comeback Kids
*Faith = Restored
*First Taste Of Freedom
*Foster Diaries
*Heroes
*Little But Fierce
*Odd Couples
*Pittie Nation
*Reunited
*Ruff Life With Lee Asher
*Running Back To Rescue
*Soulmates
*Wild Hearts
*You Know Me Now Meet My Pet
==Controversy==
On November 25, 2022 famous YouTuber Iilluminaughtii uploaded a video criticizing The Dodo for many different things. They criticized The Dodo for many different things including, them showcasing videos of people without wildlife rehabilitation licenses rescuing wildlife, and their "Odd Couples" series for the fact that they feature different species that may cause harm to or even kill each other.
==Channel milestones==
===Subscriber milestones===
*1,000 subscribers: March 22, 2015
*10,000 subscribers: January 8, 2016
*100,000 subscribers: June 20, 2017
*1 million subscribers: February 28, 2018
*5 million subscribers: November 30, 2019
*10 million subscribers: August 23, 2021
===Video view milestones===
*5 billion video views: March 9, 2021
Category:Users who joined in 2014
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Spanish YouTubers
Category:Educational YouTubers
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Category:Five million subscribers
Category:Ten million subscribers
Category:One billion views