Being an internet sensation is really easy these days. Social media puts an impactful effect on this purpose. To gain a positive overview from the people on the internet, you either need to do something really good for humanity or something revolutionary. But can you imagine, a picture of a pet dog being so popular on the internet, it gained the attention of most of the netizens for decades. For Kabosu, a pet dog from Japan, who is generally popular as the “Doge meme”, it is possible.
Who does not know about the all-time trending meme featuring a funny and goofy- looking yellow dog? The face of the dog is almost in every meme. We had a good laugh along with friends by seeing a picture where the yellow dog’s face is on some person’s neck. That popular-faced yellow dog is none other than Kabosu, known as “Doge” all over the internet.
Kabosu is a Shiba Inu breed female Japanese dog who was adopted by a kindergarten teacher named Atsuka Sato. In November 2008, Sato saved Kabosu’s life by taking her from an animal shelter. “She was a purebred dog from a puppy mill, and when the puppy mill closed, she and 19 other Shiba dogs were left on the street,” the teacher said. “Some of them were adopted, but the rest were killed.”
When she started seeing strange pictures of her 8-year-old Shiba Inu dog Kabosu on the internet last August, she was a little worried. “I was taken aback,” said Sato, a beautiful woman with brown hair who liked to smile a lot. “Seeing her face there was very strange. It was a Kabosu I wasn’t familiar with.”
A picture of Kabosu sitting on a couch and looking sideways at Sato’s camera with his tan eyebrows raised, paws crossed and mouth pulled back was suddenly Photoshopped onto a Twinkie, a big rock, a Canadian landscape, and a Christmas jumper. Dogecoin, a short-lived Bitcoin alternative that was famous enough to be targeted in a recent heist, used a dog’s face as its symbol. Sato didn’t know what the doge meme was until a week ago.
On February 23rd, 2010, Sato posted the fateful photo of Kabosu to her blog. The site is stocked with pictures of the Shiba Inu plus Sato’s two cats, Tsutsuji and Ginnan. She didn’t realize that Kabosu had unwittingly become the face of “doge,” the white-hot internet meme.
The interest in doge stayed the same on the internet from the day its pictures were uploaded till now when Sato’s picture of Kabosu became the most famous image of the meme. Kabosu’s face was erased from her head to make a new template. Everything from a cat to any celebrity was then put in its place
Then back in 2022, the dogecoin started to raise its value unboundedly. Twitter’s current owner Elon Musk himself promoted dogecoin and his influence made it much more popular. Although neither Sato nor Kabosu benefited from this, the face of Kabosu is now everywhere, from internet memes to online currencies. Now, Elon Musk has changed the logo of the Twitter bird to the face of this popular Shiba Inu. You can now see her in your feed while browsing Twitter.
Kabosu has been the source of internet fun for over a decade. It can be easily said that the dog has been successful in being an internet sensation by ruling the memes. As memes are one of the most trending sources of entertainment for the people of present times. Last year the dog turned 17 which is said to be 100 years in dog years. The people on the internet wish that the “doge meme” lives forever in their hearts.
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Writer:
Muhammad Mahadi Hasan
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE