“我第一次發布了 Doge”，約翰·莫納克 (John Monarch) 隨意地提到，就在我偷偷溜進東京酒店的自助早餐時坐在他的餐桌旁幾分鐘後。
打擾一下？ 是的，顯然我正坐在最初的 Doge meme 的創造者旁邊，我們正準備登上巴士去參加 Doge 背後的現實狗 Kabosu 的 18 歲生日派對。
Kabosu：現實生活中的總督 18 歲了
Kabosu住在千葉縣佐倉市，距離東京成田機場不遠。 2008 年，當她的飼養員倒閉時，她和其他 19 隻柴犬被帶到動物收容所接受安樂死。 然而，她被當地幼兒園老師佐藤敦子（Atsuko Sato）（她在X 上的67,000 名粉絲更熟悉的名字為“@kabosumama”）救了出來，由於她的圓臉，佐藤以柑橘類水果的名字為她命名。
Kabosu喜歡在放鬆的時候一直做出這個表情，Atsuko回答了生日人群的問題。
在 2020 年罕見地接受 KnowYourMeme 採訪時，Atsuko 回憶道，她之所以聯繫收容所，是因為我失去上一隻狗已經過去兩年了，我想再次與狗一起生活。 大多數卡博蘇斯兄弟姊妹就沒那麼幸運了。
雜誌作者 Elias Ahonen 在 Doge 18 歲生日那天飛去看她。 另一個模因“壞運氣布萊恩”（Bad Luck Brian）可以在背景中看到。
十五年後，2023 年 11 月 2 日，在她的派對上，她很幸運仍然和我們在一起。 18歲相當於狗年的90歲，這是一個令人印象深刻的壯舉。
當佐倉市長興奮地向聚集在荷蘭風格風車周圍的人群發表演說時，卡博蘇斯嬰兒車被推向舞台，讓圍觀者感到高興。 今天是她 18 歲生日（大概是這樣），敦子決定在她三歲的時候被收養。 宣讀國慶日曆代表的聲明：從此，11月2日為國際總督日。
「我記得她在房間的角落用洋娃娃般的眼睛盯著我，」敦子抱著她回憶道。
Kabosu 是 DOGE，每天只做善事，正如 Atsuko 所說，多年來，她甚至沒有聽說過這個詞。
狗狗幣的崛起：從迷因到加密現象
今日狗的故事開始於 2010 年，當時 23 歲的 Monarch 在北卡羅來納州偶然發現了一張匿名狗坐在沙發上做鬼臉的照片。 這張照片最初是 Atsuko 的丈夫在當年早些時候拍攝並發佈在她的部落格上的八張系列照片中的一張。 約翰在 Reddit 上發布了這張圖片，標題為 LMBO LOOK @ THIS FUKKIN DOGE。 「總督」這個字本身已經被使用，儘管很晦澀。
你發了一個愚蠢的帖子，別指望它能做任何 300 個讚的事情，沒那麼嚴重。
It spread slowly, at some point picking up a comic sans theme and eventually getting its own subreddit, r/doge, in early 2013. Images of different Shiba Inu dogs were presented in a similar format, and text in Doge speak like much wow saw it named Know Your Memes top meme of that year. At that point, it was everywhere, with a late 2013 Huffington Post article complaining that the beloved internet meme was being ruined by uncool Republican members of U.S. Congress using it incorrectly.
A decade on, doge reigns strong. It has recently also become associated as a mascot of another meme, NAFO, which is described as a meme and social media movement dedicated to countering Russian propaganda and disinformation about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Doge McLaren. (Twitter @dogeclaren)
On the bus to Chiba, I ask some of the birthday party organizers and attendees what Doge means to them and what it stands for. To me, Doge is that spark of magic, a noble mission of spreading joy, explains Gary Lachance, a big fan of the doge meme, who once drove a McLaren wrapped in Doge faces across the United States. He sees it as a wholesome counterweight to the dark and toxic places that exist on the internet.
Along with doge-loving hippy hacker Griff Green, Lachance previously worked to bring a doge-themed art car Disco Doge to Burning Man.
Bad Luck Brian. (Reddit)
Silliness and whimsy, says another, because the world is too serious. Doge means love! another pipes in with confidence. For some, this is a pilgrimage.
Others look at the crypto angle, with local doge fan and birthday attendee Kaneko Otanel saying, Doge is a starting point for those unfamiliar with crypto, especially in Japan.
Then I got to ask a meme himself: Tay Zonday, known for his 2007 Chocolate Rain song video, which 4chan helped make viral.
Im a meme, Bad Luck Brian is a meme, Doge is a meme, he stated matter-of-factly, referring to meme colleague Kyle Craven, who was also present at this meme gathering.
I believe blockchain has the potential to save us from the worst outcome of social media.
Elon Musk and the celebrity influence on Dogecoins popularity
A 2014 brass coin produced by Shibemint to commemorate the Dogecar. Crypto Imperator also produced brass, silver and gold coins embedded with private keys to 10,000, 100,000 and 1 million Dogecoin, respectively. (Shibemint)
Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer launched their joke cryptocurrency that no one would take seriously on December 6, 2013. And they picked doge as their mascot.
Despite the founders exit, the Dogecoin community has banded together to crowdfund some memorable projects.
In January 2014, they made headlines after raising money to send the Jamaican bobsled team to the Sochi Olympics, inspired by the movie Cool Runnings.
Later that year, 100 million DOGE was collected to sponsor Nascar driver Josh Wises car #98, which came to be known as the Dogecar. The car is playable in the Nascar 14 video game.
Fun and social, Dogecoin has also seen success as a tipping currency on online forums like Reddit.
So I just bought my Twitter handle for $DOGE #dogecoin #doge from a guy who shares my last name. in a decade his kid will get a mysterious paper wallet from a "distant relative" https://t.co/QKxKWjlcxC
— Elias Ahonen.eth (@eahonen) February 15, 2021
In mid-2020, when coins cost a quarter of a penny, a viral TikTok trend promoted the idea of DOGE eventually going to the moon and reaching a $1 valuation. Not long after, a known spaceman named Elon Musk jumped onto the doge train in December 2020, writing a short tweet: One word: Doge.
pic.twitter.com/fWhEwV5uYH
— beeple (@beeple) February 8, 2021
In January 2021, Dogecoin became connected with the meme-stock community surrounding the GameStop short squeeze and gained nearly 1,000% in a two-week period. The rise to $0.07 was in part fueled by a barrage of tweets from Musk, including a play on the Vogue magazine as DOGUE.
In May, Musk held a Twitter poll asking if Tesla should accept DOGE (78% agreed), soon announcing that the car company was selling merchandise for DOGE, and SpaceX would soon follow.
Then came the announcement on April 1 April Fools Day that a literal Dogecoin was going to the literal moon aboard a SpaceX rocket, and the price soon quadrupled into the $0.25 range.
SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2021
Doge-1 to the moon: Will Dogecoin moon, too?
The next month, on May 9, Dogecoin reached its all-time high of around $0.70. On that day, Canadian technology company Geometric Energy Corporation announced it would launch Doge-1, a CubeSat fully funded by Dogecoin, into lunar orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
According to Musk, founder of SpaceX, it would become both the first crypto and the first meme in space. (However, a physical Bitcoin was sent into space on the Peregrine lunar lander last month. This developed problems shortly after takeoff and never made it to the moon.)
The @maverick_space integration facility in California has processed the @Moxyio satellite owned/operated by @GeometricEnergy (designed/built by @ExoboticsUK) for https://t.co/fZiGiyvuEG on the Geometric-1 Mission to Earth OrbitMOXY is now on the way to Cape Canaveral, Florida! pic.twitter.com/5BOkun2ayl
— Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) (@GeometricEnergy) November 28, 2022
The Doge-1 probe will feature a camera livestreaming a screen, and users can put up messages and pictures by controlling pixels via tokens. There will be five tokens available: two for location (Beta for the X coordinate and Rho for the Y coordinate), two for pixel control (Gamma for the brightness and Kappa for the color), and XI for time meaning, how long the advertisement will be displayed, according to Space.com.
There might be companies which want to depict their logo or it might end up being a bit more personal and artistic, the companys CEO, Samuel Reid, told Business Insider.
One noted critic of the mission has been Dogecoin co-founder Jackson Palmer, already known for taking a harsh tone regarding the industry and for accusing Musk of peddling pyramid schemes. Billy Markus, the other co-founder, is known as Shibetoshi and famously sold all his Dogecoins in 2015 when prices hovered around $0.0001, netting about enough in total to buy a used Honda Civic. Doge peaked at around $0.70 in 2021. Though hes no longer attached, he observes that its weird that something I made in a few hours is now part of internet culture.
Is there anyone in this space more butthurt than Jackson Palmer? pic.twitter.com/DmWBDTrDk9
— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) July 14, 2021
A $258-billion class-action suit was brought against Musk by investors who alleged that he had engaged in a crypto pyramid scheme involving Dogecoin, stating that this is a securities fraud class action arising from a deliberate course of carnival barking market manipulation and insider trading.
Real life Doge more than a meme
Despite the commotion around Dogecoin, Kabosu has led a quiet life in Sakura with Atsuko and her family, which included three cats to whom she is like a big sister. The doge meme isnt that widespread in Japan; however, Kabosu is still a minor celebrity, with Atsukos pet blog being among the most popular in the country.
Around me, nobody knows about the Doge meme. Maybe I dont understand memes very well, because Im living such an analog life, Atsuko told The Verge in late 2013, adding that she had become aware of risks related to the personal information she shares publicly.
10 years on, her distance remains. For all but a handful of visits and encounters, Kabosu has lived a life removed from the meme and token she inspired.
Im not too familiar with cryptocurrency, but seeing my beautiful dogs face on the internet is heartwarming.
This was apparent at Kabosus birthday party, where Dogecoin the cryptocurrency seemed little more than a tacked-on addition to a community celebration for a beloved dog. I came to this event because I read about it on Atsukos blog I had no idea it was related to crypto, mentions Lauren, an English teacher from Canada who in one-to-a-billion odds recognized me as a high school classmate from half a world and lifetime away. Doge magic, they called it.
Dogecoin DAOs and community: Charities and social impact
In 2021, with some outside help, Atsuko minted the famous image as an NFT, and PleasrDAO purchased it at auction for 1,696.9 ETH, or $4 million. The original couch that Kabosu was pictured on was also sold with the anonymous buyer taking delivery at Twitter (now X) headquarters, a source involved with the sale tells me. Donating much of the NFT proceeds to charity some of whose representatives attended the birthday Atsuko said she believed Kabosu had been given a special mission by the universe.
During the past decade the meme had been on its own story Atsuko was doing her own thing, and never profited from Kabosu as she is not crypto native or a meme-r.
I think nobody really drew a line back to Atsuko and Kabosu, despite other dog-coins like Shiba taking off, says Tridog, a member of PleasrDAO and now also the top dog at Own The Doge. He describes the latter as a culture DAO of Doge that aims to proliferate the Doge meme mainly through real-world positive impact. He recalls someone at the Ethereum Foundation drawing the line back to Atsuko, who in October 2019 brought Kabosu to a Devcon 5 event in Osaka.
PleasrDAO fractionalized ownership of the NFT across 16,969,696,969 DOG tokens, allowing anyone to purchase a share of the image with the possibility of dog-parking, a take on staking, to claim ownership of a specific pixel of the image. PleasrDAO sold 25% in a presale, with plans for 20% to be distributed via airdrops and 24% going to Own The Doge. Theyre going to give Atsuko 1%, too! says CryptoPathic, an involved influencer who previously led the fractionalization of another of the original Kabosu images, known as Feisty Doge, into Non-Fungible Doge NFD tokens.
Read also Features WTF happened in 1971 (and why the f**k it matters so much right now) Features Crypto scoring big with European football Doge, Shiba Inu and other dog tokens
Kabosu is not the only famous meme dog in the Shiba Inu breed. Cheems Baltze, also known as Ball Ball, was a contemporary of Kabosu, appearing in the bonk and the Swole Doge vs. Cheems memes, the latter of which features a giant muscular Kabosu and a sedate Baltze. Baltze lived in Hong Kong and passed away in August 2023 at the age of 15.
Swole Doge vs. Cheems. RIP, Cheems. (Ruinmyweek.com)
There are also more than a few kennels worth of dog coins. On a CoinMarketCap listing of memecoins, dogs dominate, with Shiba Inu (SHIB) holding a respectable or absurd, depending on who you ask $5-billion valuation and the Cheems-inspired BONK sitting near $1 billion. Dogwifhat (WIF) is a Solana token and the new talk of the town. Theres also Dogelon Mars because, of course, there would be.
Of the top 11 memecoins by market cap, eight are dogs. (coinmarketcap.com) The future of Dogecoin
Kabosu 於 2022 年底被診斷出患有白血病，他不再吃固體食物，也無法在沒有定制輪椅的情況下獨立走動。 儘管她看起來很平靜，但她很困，幾乎無法在無人幫助的情況下抬起頭，這讓人懷疑她的生活品質是否值得為之奮鬥。 她大部分時間都在敦子工作的幼兒園休息。 在生日慶祝會上，敦子告訴觀眾，你們的愛多次拯救了卡博蘇斯的生命，感謝粉絲們的愛和支持，讓她活到了晚年。
揭幕儀式後，敦子和佐倉市長與 Kabosu 及其雕像合影。 最初的沙發被賣給了 Twitter 總部的某人。 （Soranews24.com）
許多迷因也都失敗了，很多社區也是如此，但不知何故，Kabosu 和總督只是從博客擴展到狗狗幣、NFT，現在是 DAO，總有一天，火炬可能會傳承下去。 特里多格指出，我們只是在傳播微笑。
接下來，無論怎樣，卡波蘇現在已經成為櫻花永久的一部分，透過新揭幕的她的青銅雕像，兩側是三隻貓，坐在她被拍到的著名照片的沙發上。 該計畫由 Own The Doge 駐澳洲專案經理 SaladPingers 領導。 Doge 是關於各種背景的人們聚集在一起慶祝一隻有趣、可愛的狗。 它愚蠢、有益健康、平易近人，對現實世界的影響總是行善和捐贈慈善事業。
這座雕像主要是用狗狗幣支付的，這讓敦子明顯感動了。
我們收到了一份很棒的禮物，一尊卡博蘇雕像。
