It’s hard to look at the Internet without running into a cat. Like, there you are, scrolling through your Facebook feed, giving thumbs-ups to friends’ photos, when all of a sudden: cat.
And then you click on the cat, which takes you to a video of cats, and then, before you know it, you’ve spent an hour down a cat video rabbit hole, and wait, what were you doing again?
I spend a lot of time thinking about the Internet and cats and dogs. I spend so much time thinking about it that I now dream in memes. Currently cats totally dominate the Web, spreading themselves out on it like, well, like a cat on a warm laptop. However, in the past few months, a meme has emerged that might turn the Internet to the bark side.
It is the doge, and at this point, the doge has its own currency — doge has even infiltrated politics.
What is doge? A simple breakdown of this meme is a picture of a Shiba Inu, the Comic Sans font, and the word “wow!” But that hardly captures what doge really is.
And to be honest, I can’t tell you what doge really is except it’s really really funny.
The meme actually began about five years ago with a Homestar Runner cartoon in which dog is spelled d-o-g-e. “Doge” reappeared in 2010 on Reddit with a photo of a dog. As I understand it, doge met the Shiba Inu on Tumblr, where the full-scale doge was born. And now doge has hit mainstream Internet culture, transcending the Internet, and now I find myself “dogeing” out loud, discussing with friends the grammatical rules of “proper dogeing.”
The likes of LOLcat have had a stranglehold on the Internet, but doge may be the meme to wrest control of the Web from the claws of cat memes, bringing with it an era of the canine.
What do you think? Is doge going to sway the cat-filled Internet to the Kingdom of the Canine?
Check out some cuteness with Dogster:
- 10 Dogs Headed for Santa’s Naughty List (But Who’ll Get Presents Anyway)
- How Daisy, an Underdog with an Underbite, Made a Difference
- Elwood, the World’s Ugliest Dog, Had a Beautiful Life
About Liz Acosta: Dogster’s former Cuteness Correspondent, Liz still manages the site’s daily “Awws,” only now she also wrangles Dogster’s social media. That’s why she wants you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and — her personal favorite — Instagram. See ya there!
