You thought the Internet was ruled by cats? Think again. Doge is one of the biggest Internet memes to hit it big on the web, and it's just as weird and hilarious as ever.
What is Doge?
First of all, doge is really just a misspelled version of the word dog. The online world isn't quite sure how it's most accurately pronounce, but here's a YouTube video that some people have turned to in order to solve the pronunciation problem.
Even if you pronounce it differently in your head, it's fine. There really is no right answer to how it's pronounced. It's a silly meme, after all.
Moving on. The doge meme itself consists mainly of one specific photo of a Shiba Inus (or "shibe" for short) lying on a couch with its eyes focused suspiciously to one side. But in general, for this meme, any photo of a shibe will do.
Most meme creators photoshop the shibe into other photos, or they go straight ahead and paste its face onto other characters, people, animals or objects. Text with strange wording with erroneous grammar are generally then added all around the photo, using Comic Sans font and different colors.
The added text is supposed to reflect the shibe's inner thought process about the world around it. Its most popular text phrases include:
- Wow
- Such [adjective]
- Very [noun]
- So [noun]
- Many [noun]
Simply fill in the nouns and adjectives with whatever fits the subject of the photo and your doge meme is finished. Wow. Such easy.
Where Did Doge Come From?
So, you may be wondering where the doge meme came from, and why it's even spelled that way. Lucky for us, Know Your Meme has most of the answers to these kinds of things.
According to Know Your Meme, the earliest noticeable misspelling of the word dog to doge was in a 2005 Homestar Runner puppet show video. It wasn't until years later, in 2010, when the misspelled word was mentioned on Reddit.
It seems that the doge trend grew quietly through the end of 2012 and really took off on Tumblr in 2013. This particular photoset Tumblr post (with over 170,000 Tumblr notes) may have spurred some of the doge trend virality. During this time, more Tumblr blogs, subreddits and 4chan threads about doge started popping up.
By November of 2013, it was full-fledged doge palooza.
Where Can I Find More of Doge?
The doge meme is absolutely huge on Tumblr. You should definitely look there first before anywhere else. Simply type "doge" into the search bar or just check out the doge tag URL right here.
Gawker also has a spectacular article that's been completely dedicated to the magic of doge, and in it the author mentions that there are at least two really good Reddit subreddits with great doge meme creations: /r/shibe and /r/supershibe. (There's also /r/doge, obviously.)
On Facebook, a doge fan page was created in August of 2013, and by mid-November 2013, it already had over 239,000 likes. Amazing, right? Such popular.
Of course, when in need, Google is always your friend. Do a search for "doge" and check out some of the recent images in Google Image Search to get a glimpse at the best doge masterpieces that have pleased Google's search algorithm.
How Can I Make a Doge Meme?
If you find doge as funny and strange as the rest of the web, you might just be inspired enough to go ahead and make your own hilarious doge meme. Check out our list of recommended meme creator tools here.
If you've got your own photoshop skills to put to use, you can go ahead and start putting doge into every photo you have on your computer. The more ridiculous, the better.
Typically, you can use the word "wow" twice or more for extra emphasis, and remember to keep it all in Comic Sans. Some very talented people even take it a step further by creating doge GIFs.
We really like The BarkPost's creative and simple explanation of what doge means to the web. You should check it out, and perhaps download the image at the end of the page to make your own doge meme.
