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President - elect Donald Trump denote on Tuesday that one of histop donors , Elon Musk , will co - lead the fresh createdDepartment of Government Efficiency , or DOGE . It ’s a not - even - lightly - veil nod to the popularDoge meme , limn a cute Shiba Inu , which is also the divine guidance behind the meme cryptocurrencyDogecoin .
The commission , which will advise Trump , is n’t an existent politics department — those have to beaffirmed by Congress . But Musk seems to have successfully turneda joke he made on Xin August into an actual consultative role in the Trump administration .
Musk has been a do it advocate of the Doge meme for years .
The meme itself is simple . It references a Shiba Inu , a breed of hunt down pawl from Japan . The dog , who ’s cite Kabosu , captured the net ’s mettle by being exceptionally cute , similar to other , older brute - themed memes likeGrumpy Cat . Its owner , a kindergarten teacher in Japan , first posted a characterization of Kabosu in 2010 , but the Doge meme went viral in 2013 when people add multicolored Comic Sans - styled textbook to the photo , imagining a dog ’s national soliloquy in broken English . A characterisation of this Shiba Inu in a pile of autumn leaves might read something like : much leafage , very pile , many shine , such pumpkin vine spice latte .
The laugh were funny 10 years ago , but like any meme , these unfamiliar phrasings could only remain entertain for so long . However , Doge keep cultural relevance because , in late 2013 , two software system engineers create a fresh cryptocurrency as a trick and name itDogecoin , a reference to the Doge meme .
For a cryptocurrency that was created tomake fun of cryptocurrency itself , Dogecoin has taken on a lifespan of its own , and in part , we have Musk to thank for that . He ’s been a longstanding proponent of the purposeless coin , even announcing a Dogecoin - funded “ DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon ” via SpaceX. ( It was ab initio planned to launch in 2022 , but DOGE-1 has not yet gone “ to the moon . ” )
Musk also confirmed that Tesla owns some nameless amount ofDogecoinwhen he was action for$258 billionfor an alleged racketeering schema contrive to inflate the price of the cryptocurrency . ( The lawsuit wasdismissedearlier this year . ) Musk play with Dogecoin at X , too , having brieflychanged the fellowship ’s logolast year to be the doge meme — another move that lead in a discriminating rise in the damage of Dogecoin .
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Similarly , Dogecoinspiked by nigh 20%on Tuesday nighttime after Trump announced the macrocosm of the Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE ) .
Musk ’s meme - based joke are n’t young ; see the 420 joke that was a part of the“funding batten ” Tesla debacle , for instance . But for Trump , it ’s a bit less expect .
Doge follows the same trajectory as Pepe the Frog
The Republican Party has a history of comprehend memes to their reward . During Trump ’s last presidential term , a popular meme dubbedPepe the Frogbecame associated with the alt - rightfield .
Created bycomic artist Matt Furie in his 2005 risible “ Boy ’s Club,”Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character and embodiment of the “ fellow rock ” ethos — a shorthand for immature , yet not actively harmful bodily function among groups of young men ( such as the “ Boy ’s Club ” characters ) . For Pepe , that means he ’s a carefree dude who just wants to fume weed and play video games with his bros . Pepe plausibly does not experience what a 401(k ) is , and it ’s doubtful that he owns a seam inning .
Most people who used the Pepe meme never knew about its origins ; instead , they just saw a batrachian with various expressions that they could employ to depict their emotion , from deep sadness to sheer delight . masses felt a kinship with the meme , often adopting him as their incarnation on various forum like 4chan’s / b/ board , which generate some of the most flagitious contentedness on the internet due to its lax principle and decade - prospicient reputation for breeding chaos .
Pepe ’s ubiquity on the web uphold for over a decade . In 2015 , the frog was themost reblogged meme on Tumblr . So when Trump announced his crusade for president that year , Pepe was still prevalent online . Because the meme is so divorced from the original context of the Matt Furie comedian , the unpolitical character became a de facto dog whistle sign involvement in alt - right wing movements . Trump began to put up Pepe memes that echoed his feeling , as birdcall to “ build the bulwark ” on the country ’s southern border with Mexico grew in the U.S.
For community on the internet that had get accustomed to portray Pepe in Nazi gear or as a U.S. mete patrol officer , Trump ’s acknowledgment of their meme felt like an endorsement .
This escalate further when Trump ’s Word , Donald Trump Jr. , shared a graphic mocking Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton ’s say-so that Trump elector are “ deplorables , ” which included a interpretation of Pepe as Trump . As a upshot , the embrace of the term “ deplorables ” grew and Pepe became synonymous with alt - right hand movement . In a goggle box interview where the white nationalistRichard Spencer gets punched in the look , he ’s wearing a Pepe pin on his sport coat .
meme like Pepe function well as a political blackguard whistle because they seem ingenuous and already have prove their popularity . Yet what search like images of lamentable toad frog or happy dog can be twisted into something darker . Though not all uses of the meme were intend to signal alt - right association , the Anti - Defamation League ended upclassifyingPepe as a hate symbol .
Pepe has since come around . oddly enough , the frog is more associated with crypto and Twitch pennon than alt - correct activism these days ; the toad frog was even present on preindication inpro - democracy protestsin Hong Kong . Doge could now fall into the same trap that Pepe bring down in , becoming a symbol of the 2nd Trump administration and Elon Musk ’s involvement in it . But as Pepe showed , a meme has the potential to be reappropriated and adulterate into something new , over and over again . The unofficial , Musk - led DOGE power may not be the net fate of Kabosu the Shiba Inu .
