The Doge Returns to Witness Another Collapsing Empire
Talk about a long play from the Byzantine Empire! An exploration of the power of the internet and finding joy in the comments section.
For over 1,100 years, from 697 to 1797, Venetian aristocrats elected men to rule Venice. These rulers, called doges (from dux, meaning leader) ruled over the Republic of Venice. Incredibly, the last doge actually lived during the first two decades of the United States.
They were pretty important. During their time in power, the doges worked along with the leaders of the Byzantine Empire, managed trade finances through the crusades (🚩), dealt with the Austrian Hapsburgs, and eventually lost their steam with the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
Though these men with unique smurf-like hats played an outsized role in global trade, their story diminished following the rise of capitalism, new borders, and the growth of industrial countries. Now, unless you visit Venice or have a fascination with trade routes of the Renaissance, (or you’ve taken any number of my classes) odds are you probably have never heard of the OG Doges. The term pretty much disappeared.
That was until 2005 when a puppet episode of Homestar Runner brought it back. It occurred when Homestar misspelled the word dog and Strongbad replied with “your doge?” Watch the origin here:
Somewhere, some Millennial likely got this word jammed in their head and started referring to dogs as doges. It was only a matter of time before an “official” dog would represent that term, and that happened following a cute photo of an adopted dog appeared on a Japanese photoblog. Atsuko Soto’s shiba inu dog Kabosu (meaning “pumpkin”) happened to make the perfect internet meme face and in 2010, a redditor said “Look at this fukkin Doge” with the image of Kabosu.
But it was Tumblr that made the shiba inu the internet’s dog with blogs like dailydoge, fuckyeahdoge, and shibaconfessions. This whole thing co-aligns with the shifts in meme language (the access to photo editing software, the adoption of smart phones, and the scaling of social media and memes) and rise in internet culture and soon, the meme was everywhere.
(It’s also one of the few wholesome memes that you can google in a classroom without losing your job.) (For now.)
Meanwhile, the reactionary digital currency Bitcoin was getting competition in the form of memecoins and shitcoins and DogeCoin was launched in 2013. DogeCoin would hit its peak during Trump’s first term in 2017-18 and soon, the edgy thin-skinned poster billionaire Elon Musk, in his finite wisdom, glommed onto the memecoin and promoted it as much as he could. It’s believed Musk is the “whale” that owns the largest amount of the coin. (This means if you invest in DogeCoin you basically are paying Musk more money.)
Cut ahead to Trump’s second presidency and Musk is the loyal consigliere to the throne, gifting Trump over 130 million dollars in the election and the in-kind gift of all of X’s algorithmic boosting. As a reward, Trump posted an announcement that Elon and Vivek Ramaswamy would co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. (And I know the joke’s been said, but it’s hilarious it has two people to lead an efficiency department.)
You can almost hear Musk giggling and hyuk hyuking it next to Trump as they put this troll piece together. Presidents can’t make departments, so this will likely be an office or an inspector general or something stupid like that.
But for the majority of people who aren’t part of the millennial internet, this is the first time they’re hearing the term Doge (pronounced dōhj, not doggie) and there’s good odds very few are aware of the fact Doges played a huge historical role for a literal millennia! They even had their own Doge Coin. It was a real coin, not a piece of code that relies on environmental destruction and reactionary ideologies.
Anyway, the point here is that history is fragile. You can have a 1,000 year dynasty of rulers from one of the most important ports in Europe and the centerpiece of several empires and some creature with a walnut sized brain and a yellow dog dominate the search results when you look for them today. One Thousand Years, overwritten by the internet’s high volume of creativity and grifters leaning into a fictional currency for some penny investment.
It’s humbling if you’re open to the idea all this is temporary in the big scale of things. The internet is alive and more dynamic than we realize and we have to do our best to understand it, preserve it, and treat it seriously.
If Elon had any real interest in anything he says he has interest in, he’d recognize that as well. But that’s not the world we’re in and now we’ll get to see if these Doges survive another collapsing empire.
As Miles Klee writes in Rolling Stone about Elon’s love of the meme:
Once a harmless image celebrating our love of adorable furry friends, it is now the face of an impending assault on the government institutions that enforce financial and labor laws, keep our food and drinking water safe, manage the U.S. education system, and conserve natural resources. This, in turn, is spurring a cryptocurrency boom that could cost investors tens of thousands of dollars if it turns into another bubble. It doesn’t seem fair that a beloved Shiba Inu should come to represent such political and economic dysfunction, but when Musk wrests control of something — whether a company, a presidential campaign, or a meme — he doesn’t often let go.
RIP Kabosu.
PS. The Meme Literacies Doge Primer Deck has been updated with the D.O.G.E. things. Take a look.
The Onion Buys InfoWars!
CEO of The Onion and former NBC reporter on the dystopia beat, Ben Collins, announced yesterday that his company Global Tetrahedron, along with the help of the victims of the Sandy Hook mass murder, won the auction to buy InfoWars and all its assets.
As Parker Molloy writes in her newsletter:
This isn’t just a corporate prank. It’s poetic justice. For years, platforms like Infowars have been ground zero for some of the most harmful lies and conspiracies, many of which fueled real-world harm. The Onion taking control isn’t (just) funny; it’s an act of media accountability and a reminder that traditional media often fails to hold figures like Jones accountable.
Collins promises to repurpose the site for satire. It won’t undo the harm the site and its conspiratorial former owner Alex Jones caused, but it is a way to see that the game can be played in different ways than expected.
Finding Joy in the Comments Section
In the grimness that has become doomscrolling where any second a post could announce another despicable/odd/gross/inappropriate Trump government nominee, it’s nice to know that every so often, the comments section offers a respite from the horrors.
As a fairly new parent, social media algos have tuned social feeds so my wife and I see the most odd posts by mommy and daddy bloggers. Most of these posts are half-baked engagement bait that looks like classic fail posting, and fortunately the viewers use the comments section to add savvy humor. In many cases, the comments are better than the content. It’s the small joy that comes from these digital hellscapes and I’m thankful for these bright spots. Keep your eyes open for the joy that still exists.
A good reminder of the power of the internet
Until next time, stay vigilant, stay curious, and persist.