Siena Filippi really wanted to know what her cat was saying. Ms. Filippi, a 26-year-old content creator and vintage store owner, had recently come across a slew of videos on TikTok showing pet owners talking to animal communicators. The thousands of videos — which usually consist of owners showing their reactions to the readings — had started appearing consistently on her For You Page. She wondered, Why not get a reading for her childhood cat?
“I have dabbled in an Etsy psychic, so I’ve had experience that way,” Ms. Filippi, who lives in Brooklyn, said in a recent phone interview. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know they could even do it for animals.’ So then I went and I found one myself.”
A friend of hers recommended Daniela Amato, a New Jersey-based “animal intuitive” with her own robust social media presence. As part of her business, Heart Communications, Ms. Amato speaks to animals, dead and living, and performs reiki on pets. She’s not a psychic, per se, as her messages aren’t predictive; instead, according to her Instagram, “My goal is simply to relay messages and be the conduit for you and your animal companion.”
Before their phone reading, Ms. Filippi sent Ms. Amato a photo of her cat and said he was named Bitty. What Ms. Amato told her surprised her. “The first message that came through is that she wanted me to know from my cat that he knows that he’s so handsome,” Ms. Filippi said.
In a video of the phone call that Ms. Filippi posted on TikTok — which has been viewed more than 450,000 times — Ms. Amato confirms she has a pressing message from Bitty. “So he thinks he’s very handsome,” she said. “Beautiful, actually, and he says he is a gentleman as well.” She also mentions his “sweet breath” — a side effect of medication he takes, Ms. Filippi said — and says he prefers spending time at Ms. Filippi’s family beach house. And though his name is Bitty, he actually calls himself Leo.
“I really felt like the phrases she was saying and the information she was giving me reflected, kind of, the personality of my cat,” Ms. Filippi said.
Ms. Amato takes her communication with animals very seriously.
“I always heard animals as a child, but it was dismissed as being imaginative or creative,” Ms. Amato said in a phone interview. “As I got older, I had moments where I felt I was understood by the animals. When I had my dog, Little Bear, I felt he trained me to hear him as well as be heard by him.”
Since Ms. Filippi’s video was posted to TikTok, Ms. Amato has seen a sharp increase in interest in her own social media accounts, which she called “great tools” for finding clients, with her services now booked several months out.
“It felt heartwarming to know that I impacted her business positively,” Ms. Filippi said.
Ms. Amato is one of a host of animal communicators on TikTok who have seen their businesses boom since creators began posting videos of their conversations. Shirley Hyatt, a longtime animal communicator living in Southern California, has amassed more than 220,000 followers on TikTok since her daughter Holly started the account for her.
“My daughter was sick one time and she decided she was going to make me a TikTok page,” Ms. Hyatt said. “The only thing I ever heard about TikTok was it was something kids got on. I knew nothing. And I’m not a computer person. But the very next day, my website went down, and I had three or four hundred emails about it.”
Now, Ms. Hyatt said, the majority of her new business comes from TikTok, where she frequently posts videos of live readings. She’s gotten so popular that she has impersonators.
Though animal communication has its skeptics, believing in the work is almost irrelevant to the trend. Some people hire professional communicators in an attempt to get real answers out of animals — especially those who have died — but many of the creators on TikTok are doing it for the sheer entertainment value. Either way, it’s been an unexpected hit online.
“I don’t think someone can believe it unless they experience it themselves,” Ms. Filippi said.
For her part, she’s already planning to get another reading from Ms. Amato for her other cat, Pierre, whom she shares with an ex. Perhaps he has insights on the breakup? “That would be funny, even his perception of it all,” she said. “I might have to do that.”
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