Getty Image / Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto
The hardest part about dogs is they simply don’t live long enough and their passing can feel like losing a member of your family. And every once in a while there’s a dog like Kabosu, the face of Dogecoin and the Shiba Inu famous for millions of memes, who touches the lives of millions and leaves behind immense sadness with its passing.
While most people might not recognize the name Kabosu they know her face. She was arguably the most popular dog over the past 15 years due mostly to the rise of memes. Kabosu was named ‘Meme of the Year’ in 2013 by KnowYourMeme, the Internet’s repository for meme history.
More recently, Kabosu became the face of Dogecoin which was pumped by the likes of Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, and became the poster child of ‘memecoin’ trading in recent years.
Her memes were simple. The template was simply a picture of Kabosu the Shiba Inu, an ancient Japanese dog breed, and the image would have colorful Comic Sans messages on top. It was the canine equivalent of lolcats except as I mention every day in my roundup of the best new memes on the Internet, dogs are vastly superior to cats, so these memes were superior to lolcats in my ways (imho).
Kabosu passed away on Friday in her native Japan at the age of 18. Shiba Inus live an average of 12-15 years so this was a particularly long, fruitful, and memorable life for a dog.
Her owner announced that she had crossed the rainbow bridge in an Instagram post:
In English, that reads:
“To all of you who loved Kabosu,
On the morning of the 24th of May, Kabosu crossed the rainbow bridge. Thank you all so much for your support over the years. She went very peacefully without suffering, as if falling asleep while feeling the warmth of my hands petting her. Thank you all so much for loving Kabosu all these years. I am certain that Kabosu was the happiest dog in the world. That makes me the happiest owner in the world. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to everyone who has sent us much love to us.”
She will be missed by millions and her legacy will live on as long as the Internet exists in its current state. It is hard to overstate how much joy was spread by this one dog. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of people found smiles from Kabosu memes over the years.
They’re all good dogs but she was a particularly great one.