that moment when ur doge

such doge

much homework

very stress

must scroll

Like most internet memes, I was completely unaware of the Doge meme iceberg, while being slightly annoyed by the tiny bit that my sons kept mentioning.  

A couple of years back, every time we passed a smallish, beige-ish dog, we would have to avidly discuss whether that was a ‘doge’ or not. It was finally made clear to me that a doge was a Shiba Inu...maybe.  But why was this so so compelling and important?

Again, like all things internet meme, I have read the exhaustive history, but am still sort of befuddled on the real why beyond the obvious “dogs are funny” and “it is amusing to imagine that they speak pidgin English.”

To attempt a brief summary of some bullet points from @knowyourmeme:

🐕The use of the term ‘doge’ for dog dates back to a 2005 puppet show video

🐕Pictures of a particular Shiba Inu were posted on a personal blog by @kabosumama (her present handle on instagram) back in 2010. 

🐕The meme spread in various forms and various dogs on Tumblr, Reddit and 4chan from 2010 onwards

🐕In 2013, YouTube inserted a feature that shifted text to brightly colored comic sans font when the search term ‘doge meme’ was used. Many of the doge images feature short words and pidgin phrases superimposed like ‘wow,’ ‘so hip,’ ‘very internet meme,’ ‘such wisdom.’

🐕Reports of the original doge’s death in 2017 were a hoax, but were very popular, and no doubt increased the meme’s popularity.

🐕Also in 2017, Dogecoin was introduced as a satirical cryptocurrency. At its height, one Dogecoin was worth $400.80. At last report, they are worth $0.00322634 each. 

🐕Enough?

For our part, we have a bit of a history with dogs’ heads on children. (Take that face recognition software.)

And the classic side-eye doge expression seemed appropriate for “That Moment When Your Mom Sees You Scrolling When You Should Be Doing Homework.’