Do You Think This Photo Of My Dog Will Become A Famous Meme?

By Kelly Conaboy September 5, 2017

My dog is not a fame hound. He is demure; he is self contained; he wants nothing to do with the bright lights of Hollywood, nor the dim lights of Instagram, nor the darkness of Twitter. He is not looking for the approval of sycophantic strangers nor would he accept such approval if it were to come his way. He is fine, thank you. But also sometimes he sits on the couch in a way that I think is just so funny and well anyway do you think this pic of him will become a famous meme?

Me listening to you like oh yeah? pic.twitter.com/wepiuseKMC

— Kelly Conaboy (@kellyconaboy) September 4, 2017

Ha-ha-ha. (I’m not using the dashes to indicate sarcasm, I’m using them to make this piece seem more professional for when it is an historical document.) It’s a quite charming photo. His little arm up, a cool guy, just listening. Eyes wide circles. Little tongue out. Amazing. I’m lucky enough to have the contact information of meme expert Brian Feldman, a writer at New York Online‘s meme and web review site The Following, so I contacted him immediately about the potential success of this meme:

Thank you. Feldman went on to say, “I’m on my phone now but I’ll try to make a meme later.” OK. I didn’t ask, but I guess when one of the web’s main “galaxy brains” gets involved you treat him like “the woman in the foreground,” if you know what I meme! True to his word, he came back later with this offering:

Hm. “Huh…,” I said to Brian. “I guess I love it.” This was a lie. When I imagined my dog’s meme debut I thought it would contain a bit more substance, a timeless wit; when I imagined my dog’s meme debut it communicated a relatable-but-biting truth. “This pic of Pete is so wholesome,” The Following‘s Brian explained, “it’s tough to find the joke in it.” He tried again:

OK. You can see where Brian was going with this one, but the energy is off with all of those question marks, plus the story isn’t clear. Whom is the dog talking to? A pet store attendant in his apartment? Huh. It simply doesn’t make sense and I’m very doubtful that it has what it would take to catapult this imagine into meme stardom. Brian tried again:

OK, all right. This one is good because maybe the famous meme thing is going to be that it’s a dog having a mundane dog conversation with another dog. Ha-ha. People love dogs online. OK. I tried one in this vein.

Hmm, OK, all right. It sort of seems inevitable at this point that this photo of my dog will become a famous meme, but I’m a little worried because I’m not sure how we’ll feel about the fame once we have it.

I think another possibility for this meme is that it’s one where “the dog” (Peter) is just saying something:

Ha-ha. Pretty good. It could also be more of a “Michael Jackson eating popcorn GIF” style of meme, but instead of being used to indicate your pleasureful viewing of unfolding drama it can be used to indicate something like, maybe you’re in a group text and there’s a conversation going on that you don’t really have anything to add to, but you want your friends to know you’re there, too.

Then you just say: