# Internet meme....doge? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475 "2014-05-02T01:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/61 "2014-05-04T18:27:26Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > You don’t have to be on social media (I’m not) to know about some of the major memes, though. I’m not saying everyone has to know about all of them because if the only places you visit are the SDMB, Wikipedia, Amazon and your local news website, you’re not likely to come across them. > > To be fair though, I regularly visit Know Your Meme and 9Gag just to keep up with that sort of thing because I find them amusing and they’re a useful cultural currency or icebreaker in my demographic. That’s another key – your demographic. My demographic includes 50 year old professionals, 40 year old schoolteachers, 80 year old grandparents, and 4 year old children. None of them are groups likely to be into the latest internet memes. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/62 "2014-05-04T19:38:01Z")
For the most part, memes originate from reddit, 4chan, and rarely tumblr. All a form of social media. (if you go on know your meme and read the articles they almost unanimously cite one of these three websites as the source) The breeding ground is basically: a bunch of people with similar interests and humor. From there the memes generally travel to places like facebook and popular media sites like buzzfeed and 9gag. If it gets big enough there, it spreads further until eventually it will pop up in places outside of the original demographics entirely, at which point most people consider it to have jumped the shark (i.e. rickrolling at the thanksgiving day parade) It needs to be particularly easy to understand and laugh at for it to reach that far though. Anyway, many of you would only see these memes once they had reached the jumped the shark stage. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/63 "2014-05-04T20:17:39Z")
Can anyone confirm that pronunciation is also used for the internet meme? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/64 "2014-05-04T21:05:03Z")
I have been on the web almost every day since 1994 and I have never heard of a ‘doge’. It still don’t really know what it is even after reading this thread. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/65 "2014-05-04T21:16:00Z")
Okay, so you haven’t heard of a doge before. That happens. The internet is vast and rapidly-changing. Lots of information here to fight ignorance, including self-help research tools. > [@knowyourmeme](#): > > Doge is a slang term for “dog” that is primarily associated with pictures of Shiba Inus (nicknamed “Shibe”) and internal monologue captions on Tumblr. These photos may be photoshopped to change the dog’s face or captioned with interior monologues in Comic Sans font. I did not know about dogeweather. Now I am in love. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/66 "2014-05-04T22:38:34Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I have been on the web almost every day since 1994 and I have never heard of a ‘doge’. It still don’t really know what it is even after reading this thread. One day, a dog owner took a picture of a dog making a weird face. The internet happened to latch onto this picture due to pure luck. They put captions on it in simplified speech that a dog might say. The captions were all ironic or sarcastic sounding because the original dog looked like it was making that sort of face. That’s it. It’s literally just people using a dog picture to make simple remarks about other people or things in the vein of, “you think you’re so cool huh”. The humor is just in the weird face of the dog and imagining how it would talk. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/67 "2014-05-04T23:20:52Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > One day, a dog owner took a picture of a dog making a weird face. The internet happened to latch onto this picture due to pure luck. They put captions on it in simplified speech that a dog might say. The captions were all ironic or sarcastic sounding because the original dog looked like it was making that sort of face. > > That’s it. It’s literally just people using a dog picture to make simple remarks about other people or things in the vein of, “you think you’re so cool huh”. The humor is just in the weird face of the dog and imagining how it would talk. Ok, I might have seen that one or something similar on Facebook. I just never knew what it was or cared that much because it didn’t strike me as especially clever. There are a few similar ones with a pissed off looking baby and some others with little kids that I don’t know the name of either. However, I love the [Firestarter girl](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/043/disaster-girl.jpg) however. That cracks me up every time. Meme preferences are fickle. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/68 "2014-05-04T23:43:32Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > And even reading [KnowYourMeme.com](http://KnowYourMeme.com) still didn’t give any insight into why a dog in an avatar should elicit knowing ‘aha’s’ The same reason having a picture of a black haired man in blue tights with a red cape and a red and yellow ‘s’ symbol on his chest would elicit a ‘aha, that’s Superman’ reaction. It’s a very specific image of a very specific thing. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/69 "2014-05-05T11:42:37Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > ok, where on the internet do these things appear? Like others, I’m SDMB, a few news sites and my bank. What am I missing? Pop Culture discussion websites (including places like Buzzfeed and Cracked), Other forums (especially with a younger demographic or a lot of computer gamers), and websites with a strong “geek/nerd” culture to name a few. News websites frequently have a “Lifestyle” or “Technology” section which often discuss memes when they get notable - the BBC’s technology section is very good for both actual tech news and acknowledgement of what’s going on with tech culture. [Here, for example, is a story from the Beeb](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25588883)in January about the (now apparently defunct) Bitcoin-like currency originally dubbed “Coinye West” and renamed “Coinye” - the story includes a reference to the Doge meme and, of course, Dogecoin. In fact, the BBC has an entire section of their news website called [BBC Trending](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs/trending/), basically reporting on (and providing some context to) lots of random stuff that’s happening on the internet, particularly on social media. Remember, this is the BBC we’re talking about - not some cutting edge up to the microsecond trendsetting website that’s only for the ubercool. As I said before, I keep an eye on meme sites like Know Your Meme and 9Gag because I find memes amusing and they’re a useful icebreaker or cultural reference point in my demographic (and some others that I deal with from time to time), but given how often memes pop up in the media I would suggest that while it’s understandable that lots of people would have no familiarity with them, they’re not exactly some super-secret in-joke for nerds anymore either. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/70 "2014-05-06T03:06:14Z")
I will admit to laughing pretty hard at some doge memes. It’s the dog equivalent of lolcats. I’m pretty convinced my dog’s internal monologue is doge. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/71 "2014-05-06T05:32:41Z")
The Dogecoin car finished 20th at Talladega. [http://gas2.org/2014/05/04/dogecoin-nascar-20-talladega/](http://gas2.org/2014/05/04/dogecoin-nascar-20-talladega/) ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/72 "2014-05-06T08:00:34Z")
I’m plainly ignorant, and a dinosaur: reading through this thread a first time, “from cold”, I feel like Alice In Wonderland – [all the verbiage] “seemed to have no meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English”. I know that with the links given, with the assistance of search engines, etc.; I could, if interested enough, gain some idea of what it’s all about… ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/73 "2014-05-06T14:26:58Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > It is now this board’s mission to think of a '90’s internet meme this kid hasn’t heard of for Kambuckta to use back on him. Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there! Yes! That would totally fucking rock! ---
**Author:** ![Calatin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/74 "2014-05-06T14:46:50Z")
The G.I. Joe PSAs? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/75 "2014-05-06T14:59:14Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there! Sorry, that’s not even a meme, much less one from the '90s. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/76 "2014-05-06T15:41:23Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Sorry, that’s not even a meme, much less one from the '90s. Its not a meme, its a look at me. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/77 "2014-05-06T15:43:56Z")
One recipe for a good meme is to have a subtly funny picture- it’s amusing looking in an abstract kind of way. The Doge picture is funny because it’s kind of a goofy looking dog (like a poofball with a dog’s face sticking out) with this smug doggy smile. It allows you to make a lot of different captions that all ‘fit’. The word “doge” kind of reminds me of using “catte” for cat, often with Photoshopped tapestries and the caption stiched in using olde English. These were meant to depict a modern scene in a way that looked so old timey it would take a second to get the joke. Many memes evolve and grow because there’s so many variations that work. One of my favorites is to take a picture with an animal waiting for something/person looking sinister/creepy person photobombing and add the caption “Soon…” as though the subject is plotting something sinister. Smug looking Willy Wonka, Sad Bear and Grumpy Cat also are great fodder for captions. Oh yeah, and changing the subtitles for that scene in Downfall where Hitler is having a pissyfit at his generals is also really funny. Hitler: "These memes, what’s the point? I don’t get them! Nervous General: "Well maybe if you checked your Facebook feed you’d understand the conte… Hitler: “I DON’T USE FACEBOOK YOU TOOL!” ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/78 "2014-05-06T16:21:37Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > I will admit to laughing pretty hard at some doge memes. It’s the dog equivalent of lolcats. I’m pretty convinced my dog’s internal monologue is doge. This is the opposite of how it should be though. Cats are too cool for school and look down their noses at everything. Dogs are earnest in everything they do. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/79 "2014-05-06T16:56:06Z")
I “get” doge, but I just don’t find it at all funny or clever. Some memes tickle you the right way, others don’t. “Trollface” doodle and its variations don’t click with me either. As a litmus, I find the following hilarious anytime they are used: ORLY owl McKalyla is not impressed I took an arrow in the knee Clean all the things! Dog fort Business Cat ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475/80 "2014-05-06T18:35:19Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > Doge is one of the most popular memes atm > > You’re out of touch if you don’t know about it I’m out of touch then! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-meme-doge/687475.md?page=5)