WeRateDogs is a

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account that rates people's

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

s 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 attention drawn to

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

when it was suspended by Twitter for breaking these aforementioned laws.

History

Nelson, a golf management major at

Campbell University Campbell University is a private Baptist university in Buies Creek, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (Southern Baptist Convention). Southern Baptist ConventionColleges and Universities sbc.n ...

Buies Creek Buies Creek is a long 3rd order tributary to the Cape Fear River in Harnett County, North Carolina, United States. Course Buies Creek rises about 1.5 miles southeast of Angier and then flows south to join the Cape Fear River about 1 mile south ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

, was inspired by

Weird Twitter Twitterature (a portmanteau of ''Twitter'' and ''literature'') is a literary use of the microblogging service of Twitter. It includes various genres, including aphorisms, poetry, and fiction (or some combination thereof) written by individuals or ...

and had amassed a 10,000-person following on his personal Twitter account. In 2015, he and a friend were at an

Applebee's Applebee's Restaurants LLC. is an American company that develops, franchises, and operates the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill + Bar restaurant chain. The Applebee's concept focuses on casual dining, with mainstream American dishes such as salads ...

, when he set up a Twitter poll from his personal account asking if he should create a dog rating account; the positive response led him to create the account, which combines cute animals with irreverent snark. WeRateDogs asks people to send photos of their dogs, then tweets selected photos rating and a humorous comment. Dogs are rated on a scale of one to ten, but are invariably given ratings in excess of the maximum, such as "13/10". Popular posts are re-posted on Instagram and Facebook. In 2017, Nelson started a spin-off Twitter account, Thoughts of Dog. The account also has a branded game, a popular online store, and a book that was published in fall 2017. Nelson and his team of four receive 800 to 1,000 submissions daily and work to narrow them down to about one high-quality piece of dog content per day. A standout product from Nelson is the WeRateDogs Calendar, available in standard and desk sizes. Each day of the desk calendar features a different dog and a rating above 10.

Impact

As of December 2020, the Twitter account has nearly 9 million followers, and Nelson sees 30,000 likes on a post as being viral. His most popular post was of a dog marching in the

2017 Women's March The Women's March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. It was prompted by Trump's policy positions and rhetoric, which protesters called misogynistic or otherwise threate ...

, which was retweeted more than 50,000 times and favorited 134,000 times. The account's language helped to popularise the " DoggoLingo" Internet language that refers to dogs as ''doggos'' and ''puppers''. A 2016 interaction with another Twitter user, when Nelson purposefully misnamed him "Brent" as is common in Weird Twitter, spawned the catchphrase "They're good dogs, Brent", which became one of the biggest memes of 2016. In 2017, the account was endorsed by

J.K. Rowling Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The ser ...

. WeRateDogs has successfully used the account to raise money for the

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing animal cruelty. Based in New York City since its inception in 1866, the organization's mission is "to provide effective me ...

(ASPCA), as well as individual

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campaigns. In 2020, the account raised $1.3 million for more than 170 dogs. In October 2017, Nelson released a book based on the Twitter account, ''#WeRateDogs: The Most Hilarious and Adorable Pups You’ve Ever Seen.''

Copyright issues

WeRateDogs brought media attention to

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

and suspension policies on Twitter when the popular account was closed twice because of spurious

Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

complaints brought by competitors and unknown accounts. "For Nelson and many of his fans," wrote ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', "the whole ordeal has raised some serious questions about whether it’s simply too easy for pranksters to successfully remove content from the Internet by abusing the copyright claim process, particularly on Twitter."

References

External links

* {{twitter, dog_rates Dogs in popular culture Twitter accounts Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown incidents 2015 establishments in the United States Internet properties established in 2015 Weird Twitter