When you’re UNBC’s biggest micro-influencer, you need a team. Someone to handle logistics, manage your brand, field collaboration requests, and most importantly, carry the 40-pound backpack that serves as your mobile office/home/dressing room.
Enter Eri Rustad: professional sturgeon wrangler, full-time student, and the person responsible for making sure campus celebrity Stüe doesn’t get left behind in the library again.
I sat down with Rustad at Over the Edge Office to discuss what it’s like working for the most famous fish on campus. Stüe himself was not available for comment, citing a busy schedule of “existing” and “being adorable.”
The Grind Never Stops
“Stewie does not yet pay for my education and other financial needs,” Rustad admits with the weary resignation of an unpaid intern. “But I do hope that potentially one day he could.”
We’ve all been there, working for exposure, building someone else’s brand while our own student loans pile up. But Rustad remains optimistic about her client’s earning potential. After all, Stüe’s Instagram following recently surpassed that of the very publication conducting this interview. (A fact Over the Edge would probably prefer I not mention, but journalism demands truth.)
The fan encounters are real. Rustad recounts a recent incident in building 10 where a student recognized Stüe, exclaiming to her friend: “Stewie is literally like an influencer around the university.”
“That made our day,” Rustad says, using the first-person plural that all celebrity assistants eventually adopt. She’s no longer just Eri, she’s part of Team Stüe.
Origin Story: How a Manager Finds Her Calling
The Stüe empire began, as most great enterprises do, with industrial-scale theft. During a Vanderhoof watershed program, Rustad spotted a fellow canoeist’s sturgeon stuffy and immediately plotted acquisition.
“I was like, oh my goodness, who’s that? And where can I get like four of them?” she recalls with the entrepreneurial hunger of a future brand manager.
The canoeist, a man named Justin (last name redacted for his protection) – would eventually lose his sturgeon. His loss, history’s gain. Inspired by Justin’s fallen friend, Rustad’s mother procured the original Stüe from the Sturgeon Hatchery in Vanderhoof.
But here’s where the story takes a dark turn worthy of any celebrity biography: the original Stüe has vanished.
“Stewie the OG is actually on potentially permanent vacation,” Rustad says carefully, the way a publicist might say their client is “taking time for self-care” after a Vegas incident. “I did cry quite a bit, actually, after I lost Stewie.”
The current Stüe is technically Stewie Jr., though Rustad wisely kept the brand name intact. In the influencer game, consistency is everything. You can’t suddenly rebrand to “Stunior” when you’ve already built name recognition.
Managing the Extended Universe
Stüe’s family tree is complex enough to require a flowchart. There’s Tooie (currently in Japan), Stew3 (chilling at home), Luffy, Moochie, Hartley, and several unnamed sturgeons awaiting their professional debut.
“It’s a relatively large family,” Rustad notes, presumably while calculating future storage costs.
When your boss is a plush fish with multiple siblings, international travel arrangements, and a rotating roster of standby talent, the logistics alone could fill a minor in Business Administration.
The Merch Empire (In Development)
No celebrity is complete without a merchandise line, and Stüe is no exception. Rustad has already commissioned a custom soap dish holder (“Gorgeous piece of work,” she says, like someone describing a Fabergé egg). She’s hand-drawn two tote bags featuring dozens of sturgeons, a project that nearly broke her spirit.
“I wanted to give up and I was like, no, you got this, a little bit more,” Rustad recalls, describing the artistic equivalent of an unpaid overtime death march.
The future product line reads like a fever dream from a licensing meeting: Stüe bedding, Stüe pajamas, Stüe slippers, Stüe mugs, Stüe hair clips, Stüe earrings. There’s even discussion of a sturgeon sleeping bag blanket, because apparently regular blankets aren’t whimsical enough.
“I have a whole list in my phone, in my notes, of different things,” Rustad says, sounding exactly like someone whose entire camera roll is branded content and whose Notes app is 70% merch ideas.
On Shareholder Value and Living the Dream
When pressed about Stüe’s business model and profit margins, you know, normal things to ask about a plush fish, Rustad pivots expertly to mission statement territory.
“I think it’s just to bring out that little whimsy and wonder in all individuals,” she explains, deploying the kind of inspirational corporate-speak that would make a TED Talk organizer weep with joy.
She’s not wrong, though. In a world where carrying a stuffed animal past the age of seven is considered “society being kind of a poopy bum bum” (her words, not mine), Stüe represents something bigger. Permission to be silly. Permission to not take yourself too seriously in the middle of midterms and existential dread.
“Perhaps society says you shouldn’t be carrying around a stuffy as a fully grown individual in a post-secondary institution,” Rustad muses, channeling every assistant who’s ever had to justify their boss’s eccentric choices. “But that’s not law.”
The Message
Behind every successful campus icon is someone schlepping a massive backpack, fielding Instagram DMs, and occasionally crying over lost prototypes. Eri Rustad is that person for Stüe, and she’s remarkably philosophical about it.
“Everyone just wants to be loved and to be happy and to be accepted, respected, and feel a sense of belonging,” she says, before delivering what is presumably Stüe’s official sign-off: “Live, love, laugh, slay every day. Spread the love.”
So if you see a large backpack with a plush sturgeon peeking out, say hi. Take a photo. Offer a high-fin. And maybe, just maybe, acknowledge the person carrying it all – the manager, the handler, the devoted member of Stüe’s entourage who’s making campus a little more whimsical, one fan interaction at a time.
You can catch Stüe on Instagram @whatstuedo, or on campus if you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse.
