Looking for the US Department of Government Efficiency? See #DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).
Doge is an internet meme that became popular in 2013, built on a photo of Kabosu, a Shiba Inu, overlaid with multicolored Comic Sans captions in deliberately broken English: “such wow,” “very amaze,” “much noble.” Wikipedia notes that the meme later lent its name and face to Dogecoin, introduced in December 2013 as the first cryptocurrency based on an internet meme.
Origin
- June 24, 2005: the word. Know Your Meme dates the use of the misspelled word “doge” for a dog to June 24, 2005, in an episode of Homestar Runner’s puppet series.
- 2010: the photo. Atsuko Sato, from the city of Sakura in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, posted photos of her rescue Shiba Inu Kabosu to her personal blog; NBC News reports that “The famous image of Kabosu was taken in 2010 and uploaded to Sato’s blog.”
- 2012: early uses. Know Your Meme records a Tumblr audio post using the word in April 2012, growth in summer 2012 alongside the Tumblr blog Shiba Confessions, and “doge” on Reddit’s /r/DogsIWannaHug in December 2012.
- August 2013: the explosion. Wikipedia says that in August 2013 images of the meme were spammed on Reddit’s r/MURICA by 4chan’s /b/ board. Know Your Meme named it the “top meme” of 2013.
Doge Speak: A Glossary
Wikipedia describes Doge captions as following loose rules: the first word “is almost always one of five modifiers,” and the joke is “the use of a modifier with a word it cannot properly modify.”
| Element | Doge usage | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Modifier | so, such, many, much, very | ”such cheap,” “very buy” |
| Wrong pairing | A modifier attached to a word it cannot properly modify | ”Much noble, so respect” (not “Much respect. So noble.”) |
| Closing word | A single word, “most often ‘wow’, with ‘amaze’ and ‘excite’ also being used" | "wow” |
| Typography | Multicolored text in Comic Sans | — |
Timeline
| Date | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| June 24, 2005 | ”Doge” used for a dog on Homestar Runner | Know Your Meme |
| 2010 | Kabosu photo uploaded to Atsuko Sato’s blog | NBC News |
| August 2013 | Meme spreads from 4chan to Reddit | Wikipedia |
| December 2013 | Dogecoin introduced | Wikipedia |
| 2014 | First non-cat meme to win a Webby Award for meme of the year | Wikipedia |
| 2021 | PleasrDAO buys an NFT of the meme for US$4 million | Wikipedia |
| April 3–7, 2023 | Elon Musk replaces Twitter’s bird logo with Doge | Wikipedia |
| November 2023 | Kabosu monument opens in Sakura Furusato Hiroba park, Sakura City | SoraNews24 |
| May 24, 2024 | Kabosu dies | NBC News |
| November 12, 2024 | Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced, named in reference to the meme | Wikipedia |
Recent Developments
SoraNews24 reported in December 2023 that a monument featuring “a statue of Kabosu perched on a polished stone sofa” had opened the previous month in Sakura City’s Sakura Furusato Hiroba riverside park. Kabosu died on May 24, 2024; NBC News reported that Sato confirmed the news in a poem on her blog, writing, “She quietly passed away as if asleep while I caressed her.” Wikipedia attributes the death to leukemia. See also #Dogecoin and #Dogelore.