Doge meme
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Doge (usually , or ) is an
Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
that became popular in 2013. The meme typically consists of a picture of Kabosu, a Shiba Inu dog accompanied by multicolored text in
Comic Sans Comic Sans MS is a sans-serif typeface designed by Vincent Connare and released in 1994 by Microsoft Corporation. It is a non-connecting script inspired by comic book lettering, intended for use in cartoon speech bubbles, as well as in other cas ...
font in the foreground. The text, representing a kind of internal monologue, is deliberately written in a form of
broken English Broken English is a name for a non-standard, non-traditionally spoken or alternatively-written version of the English language. These forms of English are sometimes considered as a pidgin if they have derived in a context where more than one ...
. The meme is based on a 2010 photograph and became popular in late 2013, being named as '' Know Your Meme''s "top meme" of that year. The Shiba Inu had a notable presence in popular culture in late 2013, including a
cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
based on Doge, the Dogecoin, launching in December of that year. Several online polls and media outlets recognized Doge as one of the best Internet memes of the 2010s.


Structure

Doge uses two-word phrases in which the first word is almost always one of five modifiers ("so", "such", "many", "much", and "very"), and the departure from correct English is to use the modifier with a word that it cannot properly modify. For example, "Much respect. So noble." uses the Doge modifiers but is not "proper" Doge because the modifiers are used in a formally correct fashion; the Doge version would be "Much noble, so respect." In addition to these phrases, a Doge utterance often ends with a single word, most often "wow" but with "amaze" and "excite" also being used. Since the inception of the meme, several variations and spin-offs have been created, including "liquified Doge", a variation wherein the dog's shape is morphed into other animals, and "ironic Doge", a version where the Doge character is put into ironic and uncharacteristic situations. The ironic Doge memes have spawned several other related characters, often dogs themselves, one of which is Cheems, another Shiba Inu who is typically characterized by a speech impediment that adds the letter "M" throughout its speech. Walter, a bull terrier character who is typically portrayed as liking " moster trucks" and
firetrucks A fire engine (also known in some places as a fire truck or fire lorry) is a road vehicle (usually a truck) that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to an ...
, is another commonly recurring ironic Doge character. These memes are mostly present on subreddits like r/dogelore. One meme which became popular in 2020 was "Swole Doge vs. Cheems", in which a muscular Doge and a baby Cheems are depicted as something considered better in the past, and its modern version, respectively.


Origin and pronunciation

, the female Shiba Inu featured in the original meme, is a pedigree dog who was sent to an animal shelter when her puppy mill shut down. She was adopted in 2008 by Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Satō, and named after the citrus fruit kabosu because Sato thought she had a round face like the fruit. Another Shiba Inu featured in the meme is Suki, a female belonging to photographer Jonathan Fleming from San Francisco. His wife had accidentally put a scarf in the wash, making it shrink. He took a photograph of Suki wearing the scarf outside on a cold night in February 2010. Kabosu was first pictured in a 2010 blog post by Sato; afterward, variations of the pictures using overlaid Comic Sans text were posted from a Tumblr blog, ''Shiba Confessions''. However, the use of the intentionally misspelled "Doge" dates back to June 2005, when it was mentioned in an episode of '' Homestar Runner''s puppet series. The meme began to grow in popularity after it was used on Reddit in October 2010 in a post titled "LMBO LOOK @ THIS FUKKEN DOGE." Some of the other characters used in the meme are based on photographs of real dogs. Cheems is based on an image of a dog named Balltze, from Hong Kong; he was adopted at the age of one and was nine years old in 2020. Walter is based on the bull terrier Nelson, who originally became popular in 2018 after his owner, Victoria Leigh, posted a picture of Nelson to Twitter, with the caption "When u open the front-facing camera on accident." In 2020, rumors of Nelson's death began to circulate the internet, although they turned out to be false. The most common pronunciations of "Doge" are and . In non-English speaking countries, "Doge" is occasionally pronounced "dodge". Those unfamiliar or unacquainted with the meme also use the pronunciations "doggie", , , or simply like the word "dog" itself, i.e. or .


History and spread


Initial 2013 spread

Online searches for the meme began to increase in July 2013. In August 2013, images of the meme were spammed on Reddit's r/MURICA subreddit by
4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...
's random imageboard, /b/. The meme was ranked at No. 12 on
MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
's list of "50 Things Pop Culture Had Us Giving Thanks For" in 2013. '' io9'' compared the internal dialog of the Shiba Inu dogs to
lolspeak A lolcat (pronounced ), or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. Lolcat images' idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak. Lolcat is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation LOL (laugh out ...
. On December 13, Doge was named the "top meme" of 2013 by Know Your Meme. In late December 2013, members of the U.S. Congress produced material in the meme's style. '' The Huffington Post'' commented that Doge was "killed" because of the Congress members' usage of the meme. In December 2013, the Dogecoin was introduced as a new
cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
, making it the first cryptocurrency to be based on an Internet meme; the viral phenomenon, along with usage of the Comic Sans MS typeface, gave it "the Internet density of a large star" according to Medium writer Quinn Norton.


Continued popularity

By early 2014, Doge's popularity was sustained by Internet communities on social media, accompanied by the rapid growth and acceptance of Dogecoin. In April 2014, Doge experienced a second major media resurgence due to revelations of the Dogecoin community's intent to sponsor
Josh Wise Joshua Wise (born February 7, 1983) is an American former professional stock car racing driver and currently an athletic trainer for Chip Ganassi Racing. He began racing in open wheel cars. Wise won the 1999 USAC 3/4 Midget Division, 2005 USAC Na ...
in NASCAR and place a picture of the Shiba Inu on his vehicle. The car features in downloadable content for the video game ''
NASCAR '14 ''NASCAR '14'' is a NASCAR video game. It is the third edition of the '' NASCAR The Game'' racing simulator series, and is the sequel to '' NASCAR The Game: Inside Line''. Developed by Eutechnyx and published by Deep Silver, the game was release ...
''. Media outlets have embraced the meme while reporting on the cryptocurrency and the car, with titles featuring phrases such as "so wow" and "very vroom". A report on '' The Daily Dot'' in December 2016 found that Doge's popularity peaked in 2014 and then fell due to "overexposure and co-option by advertisers and mainstream 'normies'", but remained stable since then and returned to Tumblr's top 10 shared memes of the year in 2016. For April Fools' Day in 2017,
China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is a Chinese state- and political party-owned broadcaster controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its 50 different channels broadcast a variety of programing to more than one billion viewers in six lan ...
published a hoax story of the death of Kabosu. In 2021, the NFT of the original Doge meme was acquired by PleasrDAO and Doge NFT was fractionalized into $DOG token. In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an online phenomenon and group dedicated to countering
Russian propaganda The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government of Russia. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of m ...
and
Russian disinformation Russian disinformation campaigns have occurred in many countries. For example, in Africa, disinformation campaigns led by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been reported in several different countries. Russia, however, denies that it uses disinformation to ...
called
NAFO NAFO may refer to: * Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization * North Atlantic Fellas Organization, an Internet meme and social media phenomenon See also * Nafo, a village in Burkina Faso * For the headgear of Senegal called ''Nafo'' see Kufi ...
(or the North Atlantic Fella Organization), where participants, who refer themselves as "Fellas", use Doge as their avatar. In addition to posting pro-Ukraine memes, or ones mocking Russian war effort and strategy and " shitposting", the group also raises funds for the
Ukrainian military , imports = , exports = , history = , ranks = Military ranks of Ukraine , country=Ukraine The Armed Forces of Ukraine ( uk, Збро́йні си́ли Украї́ни), most commonly known ...
and other pro-Ukrainian causes.


Cultural depictions


In advertising

In mid-2014, the advertisement agency DDB Stockholm had Doge featured prominently in an advertising campaign for the public transport company SL in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, Sweden. The advertisement concerned the company's special summer tickets, and featured Doge holding a public transport ticket in his mouth, with phrases such as "many summer", "such cheap" and "very buy".


Online

Google created a Doge Easter egg: when ''doge meme'' was entered into the YouTube search bar, all the site's text would be displayed in colorful
Comic Sans Comic Sans MS is a sans-serif typeface designed by Vincent Connare and released in 1994 by Microsoft Corporation. It is a non-connecting script inspired by comic book lettering, intended for use in cartoon speech bubbles, as well as in other cas ...
, similar to the kind used by the meme. In January 2014,
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
-based
web developer A web developer is a programmer who develops World Wide Web applications using a client–server model. The applications typically use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the client, and any general-purpose programming language in the server. is used f ...
s Katia Eirin and Bennett Wong created ''
Doge Weather A doge ( , ; plural dogi or doges) was an elected lord and head of state in several Italian city-states, notably Venice and Genoa, during the medieval and renaissance periods. Such states are referred to as " crowned republics". Etymology The ...
'', a weather website and mobile app incorporating the meme. ''Doge Weather'' reports the temperature and weather conditions based on the user's geographic location. In April 2014, ''Doge Weather'' became available as a mobile app for iOS 7. Mozilla's Servo project incorporated the meme into the project logo from May 2016 to February 2020.


In entertainment

In the video for
"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, record producer, actor and author. He is best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specifi ...
's 2014 song "
Word Crimes "Word Crimes" is a song by American musician "Weird Al" Yankovic from his fourteenth studio album, ''Mandatory Fun'' (2014). The song is a parody of the 2013 single " Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, featuring Pharrell Williams and T.I. The son ...
", a song about bad grammar, a Doge tweet is used to illustrate the types of bad grammar referenced in that part of the song. In the 2015 video game '' The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes'', a reference to the meme can be found in the North American version only. When examining one of the ancient bookshelves, the text reads "Still, coming here has at least afforded me the rare chance to explore these ancient ruins. So ancient. Such ruin." The reference was met with mixed views from fans of the series. In 2015, the video game '' Just Cause 3'' included a special mode that popped up text in the style of the meme in response to certain player actions. In 2017, the video game '' Smite'' added a Doge skin for the goddess Skadi.


Reception and legacy

"Doge" was one of several additions to
Dictionary.com Dictionary.com is an online dictionary whose domain was first registered on May 14, 1995. The primary content on Dictionary.com is a proprietary dictionary based on ''Random House Unabridged Dictionary'', with editors for the site providing new a ...
in November 2015. The website defines it as not just the image macro and its variants, but also the form of "language" that it utilizes. Several media publications included Doge on a list of memes that helped define Internet culture in the 2010s, and wrote on the meme's influence of further online developments, such as
DoggoLingo DoggoLingo is an Internet language that is created from word conversion, meme lexicon, and onomatopoeia. Emerging in the 2010s, DoggoLingo is implied to be a dog's own idiom, and is presented as what humans have long believed goes on in the can ...
and
WeRateDogs WeRateDogs is a Twitter account that rates people's dogs with a humorous comment about the dog. The account was started in 2015 by college student Matt Nelson, and has received international media attention both for its popularity and for the atte ...
. Evan McMurry of ABC News and Stacey Ritzen of '' The Daily Dot'' both ranked Doge as the number-one meme of the 2010s. In December 2019, Doge was voted as the best Internet meme of the
2010s File:2010s collage v21.png, From top left, clockwise: Anti-government protests called the Arab Spring arose in 2010–2011, and as a result, many governments were overthrown, including when Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was Death of Muammar Gadd ...
on a poll held by '' The Tab'', gaining 737 votes, or 22 percent of total votes cast. '' Vox''s Aja Romano included Doge on a list of 11 memes "that captured the decade," writing that it took " cat memes to new, absurdist heights, an early hallmark of neo- Dadaist millennial humor." The Japanese perception is remarkably different; Kabosu and Satō are known as pet and owner rather than a meme, and her blog was the fourth-most popular pet-related blog in the country as of December 2013. Reacting to the meme, she explained, "To be honest, some pictures are strange for me, but it's still funny! I'm very impressed with their skills and taste. Around me, nobody knows about the Doge meme. Maybe I don't understand memes very well, because I'm living such an analog life." Satō has also expressed that she had learned that "the risk of the internet is that anyone in the world can see my life on my blog". Fleming stated that in his experience, the Shiba Inu breed has become more recognized due to the meme.


See also

* List of Internet phenomena


References


External links


Original blog post featuring Kabosu
(moved fro
post
on old blog) * * * {{Authority control 2010s fads and trends 2010s photographs Animals on the Internet Color photographs Computer-related introductions in 2013 Dogs in popular culture Internet culture Internet memes Internet memes introduced in 2013 2020s fads and trends