Sweet, prickly and always in a good mood.
That’s how you knew Mr. Pokee, Germany’s most famous hedgehog. In 2018, the cutest hedgehog on the internet died and millions of fans mourned the happy hedgehog.
Now hedgehog mistress Talitha Girnus (29) reveals how her hedgehog story continued. How she dealt with her grief, how Mr. Pokee’s successor became a movie star – and a look behind the scenes of the cute hedgehog photos.
Mr. Pokee as a tattoo
When Mr. Pokee died from a bacterial infection after dental surgery, Talitha suffered greatly.
“I felt very bad afterwards. I had lost my best friend. I couldn’t open Instagram anymore because my heart was completely broken,” Talitha said.
She decided to travel to New Zealand to clear her head. Pokee, who had accompanied her for four years, was to be with her even after his death. “I wanted to get a pokee tattoo so I can take it to New Zealand. The tattoo artist had time at short notice and I immediately liked his design.”
She now wears the ornate Mr. Pokee lettering with a heart on her wrist.
A fan made a trinket out of Mr. Pokee’s spikes by molding three spikes into a heart shape.
Just before her trip to New Zealand, another hedgehog fan wrote to Talitha because she had a hedgehog “problem”. She owned a small white-bellied hedgehog to which she was highly allergic and suggested that Talitha give her the hedgehog. Said and done. A day before her departure, Herbee arrived and snuggled into Talitha’s heart.
Movie star Herbee
A year later, the mini hedgehog was asked to appear in a commercial. In the little film, a hedgehog crosses a street, the next moment you see a girl erecting a small hedgehog grave. She makes safety clothes for the new hedgehog and Herbee, can safely cross the street.
An exciting day for Talitha: “I died 15 deaths because I was afraid that the movie car wouldn’t brake after all. But I always thought to myself: In an emergency, I could still intervene.”
She set him down in the street, then he started running and stopped when the car came. “When I called him, he kept running. He always runs to where he hears my voice. When I call him, he turns around and comes back to me.”
Cute: “The warning vest kept falling off and when he stopped for a moment, it often slipped forward. That was extremely sweet.”
How the cute hedgehog photos are created
Talitha rarely takes photos, only every two or three months, according to the hedgehog mom. Incidentally, your photos are not created in hours of sessions, but in spontaneous moments of happiness.
“For example, if I see a beautiful flower and the hedgehog is awake (hedgehogs are nocturnal), then I take him outside. The hedgehog can then run around a bit and then I pick him up and take a series of pictures with my cell phone.”
And hey presto! Has Talitha 50 pictures in five seconds. When editing the photos, she then considers whether she might conjure up an accessory on the photos. Because the small accessories with which the Internet hedgehog inspires millions of fans are often created afterwards.
Talitha explains, “Then a cute little hat, which I photographed in the same light, is worked into the image.” If you look closely, you can see that too: “If I put a hat on him, the hat would be on the spikes .”
And further: “It is important to me that my photos look very bright, exciting and cheerful. I love it when I get feedback from people that they make my photos happy. This is my art.”
Mr. Pokee as a full-time job
Talitha, who has finished her marketing studies, now earns her money through the “Mr. Pokee” account.
“It’s a full-time job and a lot of time goes into editing my photos and videos. Running the shop also costs me a lot of energy. It would therefore no longer be possible to take on another job in terms of time.”
In the shop, the hedgehog mom sells merchandise to fans – full-time. If calendars are sent at Christmas, Talitha gets help, so big is the rush. Of course, Talitha also gets cooperation requests from advertising partners, because the hedgehog account with its almost two million followers is worth its weight in gold.
She says: “But I don’t take every offer. It should feel good and right. Mr. Pokee was never about making a lot of money. It took three years alone before I was even able to earn anything with my photos. That was never my goal and it’s not important to me today either. I am grateful that I can inspire and make happy so many people with my art. “
In the meantime, her animal family has grown, Talitha has mothered two hedgehogs and has five cats. For the animal friends, Talitha moved away from downtown Wiesbaden.
She now lives with her boyfriend and the animals in Hofheim, near Wiesbaden: “Because I felt the need to be more in nature with them. It is important to me that I can give my animals the best possible life and that we lack nothing.”