The dog that inspired the ‘doge’ meme and is the face of a cryptocurrency, is seriously ill with leukemia

() — Kabosu, the internet famous dog who inspired the “doge” meme and influenced digital culture for a decade, is gravely ill with leukemia and liver disease.

The 17-year-old shiba inu “voluntarily stopped eating and drinking” on Christmas Eve and was diagnosed with acute cholangiohepatitis and chronic leukemia lymphoma, according to a series of posts on Instagram from its owner Atsuko Sato, a kindergarten teacher in Sakura, Japan.

While Sato said that Kabosu’s appetite had returned, he had previously blogged that the dog was moving less and more slowly.

Kabosu became one of the most recognizable animals on the internet when a 2010 photo of him posing with legs bent and a sneering expression swept Reddit, Tumblr, and 4Chan, overlaid with an imaginary internal monologue in broken English using scattered Comic Sans text. . Internet users soon began Photoshopping Kabosu’s face into pastels, landmarks, and other animals. The meme was later co-opted by brands like Airing and the Stockholm metro.

The popularity of the “doge” meme was cemented in December 2013, when two programmers introduced an alternative cryptocurrency called Dogecoin as a tongue-in-cheek response to Bitcoin that reflected the internet’s love of animal memes. It peaked in value of over $400 in 2014 and is considered the first “meme coin” or satire of cryptocurrency.

Elon Musk is a fan and Dogecoin sponsored England’s Watford Football Club, with Kabosu’s face appearing on the sleeves of the team’s jersey.

Kabosu’s legacy can also be seen in the popularity of other shiba inu-related memes that rose in popularity in the 2020s, including the North Atlantic Fellas Organization, a pro-Ukrainian social media movement dedicated to mocking Russia’s war effort and counter misinformation.

After raising funds for the Ukrainian military, the country’s Defense Ministry tweeted its thanks with a photoshopped image of a shiba inu in uniform.

In Sato’s most recent posts about Kabosu, he said the dog was “in a very dangerous condition” and appeared to be jaundiced, but was also taking antibiotics. He also thanked Kabosu’s fans for supporting him and said that he is “gaining strength from all over the world.”