Introduction to Doge memes

Some people do not know the first thing about Doge memes. This is the first thing.

I would rather not explain this stuff because, given my reader base, it will at best just flood the Doge community with cringe leftists. But I have been convinced by a dear friend.

0. Contents

1. Material cause
1.1. Doge
1.2. Other Dog Characters (ODCs)
2. Formal cause
2.1. Character posts
2.2. Caption posts
2.3. Common features
3. Final cause
3.1. Common heritage
3.2. Reddit Doge
3.3. Facebook Doge
4. Efficient cause
4.1. Most Important Doge Page
4.2. Active OC pages
4.3. Pages that post regional content
4.4. Reposter pages
4.5. Inactive, beloved pages
4.6. Left pages
4.7. Doge groups
5. Notes

1. Material cause

1.1. Doge

Doge is based[1] primarily on the photographs of the Japanese, yellow[2] Shiba Inu dog Kabosu taken by her owner, Atsuko Satō, in 2010. This is stuff you can read about on Wikipedia, etc, but it is important, so it should be covered. What follows is the Original Photo of Doge.

Other photos were taken in the same shoot, and are also important. Here they are presented in an assorted collated arrangement.

Kabosu is very cute and lovely and everyone loves her. She is still alive as of this writing – do not believe any dumb rumors.[3] Please follow her official Facebook page and Instagram and Twitter for photos and updates (in Japanese, usually).

1.2. Other Dog Characters (ODCs)

Also common are photos of the dog known as Cheems (short for “cheemsburbger”, i.e., cheeseburger), whose real name is apparently “Ball Ball”, but he is also called simply Ball, or Balltze (after his Instagram name). That dog is an absolute celebrity, and was previously a minor meme called “Yos Doggo” independently of the Doge phenomenon. Many photos of him are often used; I will leave here only the one that, cropped and tinted, became Cheems. For more on Ball see his Instagram as well as his official page (formerly called Nom Nom Nom Club) and the official Yos Doggo page.

Other dogs are sometimes used; foremost, a pit bull called Walter, a German Shepherd named Caesar (a.k.a. “Doge 2”), and a Golden Retriever variously known as “Perro”, “Quieres”, or “eh mole kkkkk”. Doge also has a lot of connection with the fanbases of Big Floppa (a caracal) and Sogga (a serval), which are in turn connected to Bingus (a pink, hairless Sphynx cat). I do not find them worth covering in much depth, but they are all lovely animals.

2. Formal cause

There are two main kinds of Doge memes, which we might call the “character posts” and the “caption posts”. I am going to give an example of each and describe them.

2.1. Character posts

• Made from edits of Doge, or one of the Other Dog Characters, cropped and pasted over bespoke backgrounds in order to tell a short story.
• Relatively more common on Reddit (/r/dogelore); as such, besides commonly having Reddit’s sense of humor (see §3), character posts are more likely to be really tall, like the example, since Reddit allows for this more easily than the Facebook news feed.
• Often has multiple “panels”, and two different characters may speak in the same panel, which is distinguished by text color in this example, but may also be distinguished by text position.
• Main asset source: The Sacred Texts

2.2. Caption posts

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• Made from uncropped edits of Doge, left in their original backgrounds. In these memes, as in the example, any yellow Shiba Inu may serve the role of Doge, not just Kabosu.
• Relatively more common on Facebook (see §4 for pages); as such, besides commonly having Facebook’s sense of humor (see §3), caption posts are more likely to have a squarish aspect ratio rather than anything really tall.
• Usually a single panel, and the text is read as spoken by the dog, which basically contributes edge and humor to the statement. (Text written on a yellow dog is instantly funny.)
• Main asset sources: edits of Doge can be found here and here, and if you have seen one you like, you can often ask a group for it. Photos of other Shiba Inus can be found in many pet pages

2.3. Common features

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• Doge memes are made from photos of dogs and edits of them. The variety and ease of editing the photos makes them much more versatile in expression than either Wojak or Pepe, which require new original drawings to be constantly made.
• They are typically made with bold text with a thick border and/or shadow, commonly the classic meme Impact font, but often not. Archivo Black seems to be a common choice, which I believe may be influenced by how it is the first very bold font to appear in an alphabetical listing of free fonts.

3. Final cause

Doge is generally depicted in memes with a certain character; he is less of a blank slate than Wojak, or than Pepe was at its peak. Some traits are common, while others will really mark a meme as being from Reddit or from Facebook.

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3.1. Common heritage

• Doge is generally presented as male, although Kabosu is female.
• Presenting Doge as hating women and minorities is part of the common heritage, though really de-emphasized by Reddit memes.
• It is also part of the common heritage that he has been in a divorce with some woman named Karen, who took the kids in the divorce. Simple joke memes about Karen have simply gone out of style in both platforms, but she became a specific character in dogelore reddit.

3.2. Reddit Doge

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• Reddit, fitting to the “dogelore” name, has created a complex system of characters. It is meticulously documented in this wiki.
• Any idea of Doge being in a relationship with Isabelle from the Animal Crossing series is certainly from Reddit.
• Any idea of Doge having a particular family, with named relatives besides his ex-wife Karen, is certainly from Reddit. (This is not the same, of course, as merely using the “child Doge” templates to depict Doge as having children, for instance.)
• Doge is not always shown as bigoted even on Facebook, but any explicit acceptance of minorities will mark a meme as being from Reddit.
• When “Doge 2” came around, hostility to it generally came from Reddit, whereas Facebook pages tended to be more welcoming of it. (It has since simply faded away on both websites.)

3.3. Facebook Doge

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• Doge’s hatred of women and minorities has been wonderfully kindled and developed by the Facebook environment. Doge memes are frequently (post-ironically) misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic; anything further than the mildest misogyny will certainly mark a meme as being from Facebook.
• Doge having a foot fetish seems to be more of a Facebook thing.
• Doge being wanted for war crimes (typically in the former Yugoslavia countries) is a Facebook thing.
• Doge being Christian is a Facebook thing.
• Dogeposters referring to each other as “kings” is a Facebook meme, though the classic “you dropped your crown” memes must surely have been popular on Reddit too.

4. Efficient cause

Reddit Doge is found entirely in /r/dogelore (maybe /r/dogecoin) and that is all there is to it. But Facebook Doge is found in a cluster of pages and groups, the extent of which is not realized by many people. What follows is a review of major Facebook sources.

4.1. Most Important Doge Page

The most important Doge page is Doge Collection (@DogeCollector). It is the most important page to the Doge community, and the most important to follow if you are getting into Doge. This is for the following reasons:

• It is the largest in absolute numbers, and very influential on the Doge community.
• It is very popular and respected, as well as very productive, so it has given birth to many popular templates.
• The content has basically set and maintained the voice of what Facebook Doge is. It is the perfect mix of right wing extremism, basic fun silliness, and genuine heartfelt appreciation of Kabosu and other Shiba Inus.
• In this last connection, it is worth noting that the admin regularly updates followers on the newest cute photos of celebrity dogs, and has actually been in friendly contact multiple times with Kabosu’s owner as well as Ball Ball’s owner. He had plans to go to Japan and meet Kabosu, although it is unclear how much those have been thrown off by the pandemic.
• A new follower will find that he often shares from other Doge pages, so it is a great page to start from, because you can discover other pages from it.

4.2. Active OC pages

• Cutting Edge Darkcel Quotes Over Stock Doge Images is what it says on the tin. Given the great availability of high-quality “stock Doge images” (premade templates with Doge on them), the content still looks pretty good æsthetically. The text is always great, and is the very archetype of edgy right wing Doge. I believe the admin took most of the phrases from his own Discord server, so they are often real quotes from real edgelords.
• Just some fresh Doge OC for my kings is also what it says on the tin; the content quality is often on par with Doge Collection himself, and his æsthetic is similar. Has a bit more toilet humor than average.
• Owlbear Doge is good and pretty eclectic.
• Doge Dad is a beloved page known for extended, narrative character posts. Not to be confused with Papa Doge, listed below.
• Bishop Dogeberg is the main poster at his own public group, Gospel of Doge. Makes many great character posts; some are explicitly Christian, but not as many of them as the name might have led you to think.
• Creationist Doge is a thematic page, around the theme of Doge being a creationist. Very good and funny.
• Depressed Doge is another one; what it says on the tin.
• Punk Doge is the longest-running thematic Doge page. Posts are Reddit-influenced character posts. Leftist-friendly; no edge.
• Your Friend Doge also makes Reddit-influenced character posts. Also has no edge, it’s really pretty “wholesome”; leftist-friendly.
• Stromk peeple memes is alright.

4.3. Pages that post regional content

Some pages bring their local character (and possibly language) to Doge content.

• Bangladeshi Dogeposting – the owner of this one is pretty explicitly libertarian. Posts are about halfway split between Bengali and English.
• Indoges = Indonesian Doges. Usually posts in the Indonesian language, and infrequently in English.
• Dogearia Dois Irmãos is a great Brazilian Doge page. Always posts in Portuguese and doesn’t seem to like gringos very much.

4.4. Reposter pages

Reposting is not frowned upon in the Doge community, and some pages are explicitly named after the fact that they do it. African Wild Doggo is an exception – being popular early on, he was much hated by the community, because he would put his own watermark on other people’s content.

• Random Stolen Doge Pictures Until I Find Purpose – I think it used to be named “Random Stolen Doge Pictures Until I Get a Girlfriend”, lol
• Doge memes I done stole

4.5. Inactive, beloved pages

• Dogesociative is the most worth mentioning in this connection. He made great-looking caption posts with a David Bowie æsthetic and a depressed, heartbroken vibe. He still shows clear signs of being alive, but has kinda lost the energy that he used to post with.
• Sprite Doge was a fun thematic page. I think the admin is not affiliated with the Sprite brand, he just likes Sprite. Similarly, 7UP Doge.
• I made this page to bully shitty doge pages was very useful to the community early on, when many shitty doge pages were cropping up. The bullying from this page and from independent actors helped keep memes at the right tone. Also had good, eclectic OC.
• Papa Doge has only been inactive for about a month, so he might still come back. A good and beloved page, he is actually a father in real life, and has blogged about his son on the page from time to time. You may remember him from his suicide attempt. Not to be confused with Doge Dad, listed above.
• There was a great page called Doge travels to various album covers; if you see an album cover with Doge edited onto it, that page probably made it. I don’t know what happened to it, but it cannot be found anymore.

4.6. Left pages

Making a left-of-center Doge page is frowned upon, please do not do it. The closest you get are the commie posts in the “doge supply” group, as well as the non-edgy pages listed near the end of §4.2. Political Doge, a liberal page, is generally thought to be cringe and was much bullied during its heyday. The (unofficial) Cheems page is also worth mentioning here because, besides being cringe, it has repeatedly expressed distaste for the usual edgy right-wing Doge memes; most of its content is reposted.

4.7. Doge groups

My doge supply is unlimited, and I have one for every situation is the most important group because it is the largest. Encourages members to dump all of their saved Doge memes upon entry, which was a great tactic. Recently has had some infighting due to a strange influx of communist dogeposters. I tend to refer to it as the “doge supply” group, because its name is so long.

I have no comments about other groups, which can easily be found through the Facebook search function because they all have “Doge” in the name.

5. Notes

[1] Doge is based, simpliciter, but also...

[2] Nowadays, in recent photos, you may find Kabosu to be less yellow than in the Original Photo. This is partly due to the fur on her face becoming whiter with age, but also because the lighting on the Original Photo was really yellowing everything out, including the white part of her fur. With white light, I think it would have looked something more like the following picture (which is this edit, but with more white balance).

[3] Such dumb rumors often exploit a photo of Kabosu when she was sick, and looking a bit ghastly, in order to say that she is going to die soon or something. Dogs don’t live forever, but such posts are misleading; see this linked explanation.