Yesterday, May 24, 2024, the original Dogecoin dog died. That is, the dog in the image that inspired the Dogecoin meme coin died. Sad, I love dogs.
Original doge image, source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(meme)
Sidenote: one of life's greatest injustices is that dogs typically live much shorter lives than humans. I'm not sure what God had in mind when those timespans were conceived, but I think it was to strengthen us.
2024 Doge dog death
Yesterday's doge death broke quickly. I first saw it here. But, it was everywhere and you likely saw it too:
And yet, the Doge's death yesterday immediately had me thinking, "Wait, I recall that pup died a year or two ago." I wrote and posted this showing my confusion:
I did a super quick search...evidently, the dog had cancer in December of 2022 and articles such as this made the rounds.
I chalked it up as, "Well, there you go. The article was about the dog with leukemia, and I just assumed it had died." Bad and jumpy assumption...take this lesson to heart. I was wrong. Case closed.
2023 Doge dog death
Apparently, I was far from the only person who felt this déjà vu yesterday. This morning, one of the first things I saw was this:
That article (www.independent.co.uk/life-style/cheems-balltze-shiba-inu-death-b2397060.html) spoke of the Doge dog dying back in 2023. This was a few months after the leukemia news broke. I had seen it news after all. "Okay, the pup hung on for several months. Good for pup. The doggo had a good life, brought a ton of joy to the world, was much loved." I thought.
And that was that. Until yesterday.
Revisiting the independent.co.uk article, looking more closely, and comparing it to yesterday's news, there are some immediate issues:
- The names - Is the dog "Cheems", "Balltze" or "Ball Ball" as in 2023, or "Kabosu" as was reported yesterday?
- The years - The independent article wrote of the meme rising in 2017...Dogecoin was long before that, 2013.
- The sex - The independent article (and apparent dog "owner") mention the dog as "he" but evidently Doge was a "she".
- Location - Cheems was in Hong Kong, Kabosu was in Japan.
I'm currently thinking that this independent.co.uk article was just a case of shoddy journalism. It appears this was a case of two dogs, the Doge dog Kabosu and then another Shiba Inu Cheems Balltze. I think the author got them confused and morphed them into one in a case of gotta-get-this-thing-wrote by deadline and get out to the club for drinks mode, then turned out shoddy work.
To be fair, I searched a bit more. I narrowed the target dates to Dec. 1, 2022 to Dec. 31, 2023. Sure enough, it was reported then that the dog had died, Cheems, that is.
Scrolling, there were lots of articles. They seemed to all say about the same thing: doge died, the inspiration for memes, much loved. Some, not all, of the articles allude to Dogecoin. Like this one and the independent.co.uk article flat out mentions Dogecoin.
While scrolling, you might notice that last link. I noticed it. It read, "Anybody remember the Doge dog passing away near 2016 ..."
Wait, yet another Doge death?
I dug deeper yet again. That Reddit post was apparently in response to an April Fools prank post. Oh, okay, the Doge doggo lives. For now.
Lesson of dying doges
I've spent too much time already on this. This story seems ultra-ripe to me for a real journalist to take up and dig into, uncover the clues, analyze, and decipher the mystery in a logical manner. Who's got this?
If there's a lesson in this, well, I don't really know what it is other than, be careful what you read and believe. 2016 death, 2023 death, 2024 death. More? There's something about this internet and social media culture, combined with the rash gotta-publish-now culture, that spawns inaccuracy, conjecture, connects dots that are not connected, feeds upon the beast that is itself, and gets things flat out wrong. And it's a little scary.
If I had a nickel to bet, it now would not surprise me at all if this Doge dog death pops up again somehow in a few more years, with yet another twist. The dog will be in her 30s and still dying.
The rabbit hole is deep and convoluted.