Doggo

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About

Doggo is an internet slang term for dog, which is often associated with the word pupper in various ironic meme communities online.

Origin

According to Google Dictionary,^[4] the word "doggo" means to "remain motionless and quiet to escape detection," which is believed to have originated sometime in the late 19th century.

On May 22nd, 2014, the Ding de la Doggo Facebook^[3] page was launched, which typically highlights various dog-related meme images. Within three years, the page garnered upwards of 29,300 likes.

Spread

On June 6th, 2015, the /r/doggos^[2] subreddit was launched for viewers to share photographs of dogs. On July 21st, a "better names for things" chart titled "What are aninmals?" was submitted to /r/meirl,^[1] featuring a picture of a Shibu Inu dog labeled as a "common doggo" and a Fennec fox listed as a "special doggo" (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 2,400 votes (91% upvoted) and 70 comments.

On September 15th, the role-playing video game Undertale was released, featuring a an anthropomorphic boss named Doggo. On September 18th, the SmolDoggos Tumblr^[9] blog was launched, featuring pictures and videos of small dogs. On December 30th, a narrated video featuring the "What are aninmals?" chart was uploaded by YouTuber LilCosco08 (shown below).

On June 22nd, 2016, Urban Dictionary^[5] user VictorLictor submitted an entry for "doggo," defining it as "a big ol pupper." On July 1st, Redditor InfiniteBungle submitted a post asking where a copypasta referring to a pupper as "a small doggo" and a doggo as "a big ol pupper" to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[10] to which Reddit SpaceJam0 replied that it originated on the /r/me_irl subreddit. On July 16th, Redditor kingofbreakers submitted a image of a blue button with the word "Doggo" written on it accompanied by a caption in which a "barber" says "You don't undertand meme formats" (shown below). Within three weeks, the post gained over 8,400 votes (81% upvoted) and 200 comments on /r/me_irl.^[6] On July 21st, Redditor TurtlesOfJustice submitted a copypasta titled "Here's the thing. You said a 'pupper is a doggo.'" to /r/copypasta.^[7]

Merriam-Webster Mention

On December 27th, 2017, Merriam-Webster included "Doggo" in its list of "words we're watching,"^[12] a designation for words that are seeing increasing use but don't yet qualify for an entry. In their piece, they gave a history of the phrase "lie doggo" and mentioned the We Rate Dogs Twitter account as one of the reasons the word "doggo" saw increased use as slang for dogs in recent years. After tweeting about the mention,^[13] several Twitter users responded to the Merriam-Webster Twitter account with pictures of their dogs (examples shown below). The mention and the response was covered by Twitter Moments^[14] and Daily Dot.^[15]

Doggo Fight

Doggo Fight is a Tumblr^[11] blog and exploitable image macro series featuring a mock fight poster with photographs of two different dogs placed in juxtaposed panels (shown below). Each dog is given a nickname placed above their photograph along with a special move written directly below.