Content creator Elias Herrera, 36, lives in rural Treasure Valley, Idaho, United States, with his wife and four children, and often shares humor videos alongside his pet, a friendly ox and curious named Bruce.
Elias usually entertains his more than 1.9 million followers on TikTok, and 1.6 million on Instagram, with hilarious videos, in which he tries to prepare some dishes, such as pancakes, sandwiches and desserts, always receiving Bruce’s “help”.
In an interview with People magazine, Elias said that he didn’t expect that he would win over so many people with his videos. “It was crazy,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to grow so fast.”
He went on to say that the audience’s reaction encourages him to produce more: “A lot of people come to me and say, ‘Hey, you changed my day just by watching Bruce today. I was having a terrible day and now I’m smiling or laughing.’ And that, to me, makes it all worth it, just knowing that someone is smiling and having a good day.”
One of the first videos to go viral showed the interaction between Herrera and Bruce, along with other farm animals, until, on a cold day, he decided to take him indoors. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to do that, let’s bring him in the house.'”
On this day, he recorded a video of Bruce stealing a pancake in the kitchen, which went viral. Since then, taking Bruce into the house and recording the videos has become routine.
He adopted Bruce a little over a year ago, when he was just 3 days old; he bottle-fed the calf for 80 days, while raising other animals on his farm.
“He has a strong personality. He has a lot of energy, he’s super curious, which is very rare [in cattle]. And so at the end of the day, my decision to bring him in the house was like, Bruce’s friendly, he’s curious, he loves food, so it’s going to be easy to make it work.”
Despite his success, some users often criticize Elias for the food he offers Bruce — he was even banned from TikTok for a while. These criticisms, however, do not bother him, and he says he is confident with the care he has for his animal. “I lived on a dairy farm for two years, so I learned quite a bit about cattle and what you can and can’t give them. Obviously it would never intentionally hurt,” he said of Bruce, whom he calls a “friend.”
