Kabosu, the beloved dog behind the “doge” meme, passed away on May 24 after 14 years of internet fame.
The Japanese shiba inu inspired a generation of online jokes, becoming the face of Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Kabosu had been battling leukemia and liver disease. Her owner, Atsuko Sato, announced the news, expressing gratitude towards Kabosu’s fans.
“She quietly passed away as if asleep while I caressed her,” Sato wrote on her blog. “I think Kabo-chan was the happiest dog in the world. And I was the happiest owner.”
Sato estimated Kabosu’s exact age to be 18, as her real birthday was unknown due to her being a rescue dog.
Sato, a teacher from Sakura, east of Tokyo, adopted her in 2008 from a puppy mill where she would have been otherwise put down. Two years later, in 2010, she posted a picture of Kabosu with her paws crossed on a sofa.
She posted the picture on her blog, which quickly spread to the online forum Reddit, becoming a viral meme. The memes used humorous, broken English to express Kabosu’s inner thoughts and other shiba inu “doge” – pronounced “dough” but with a “j” at the end.
The image was later sold as an NFT digital artwork for $4 million and inspired Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency initially created as a joke by two software engineers. Dogecoin, now the eighth-most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap of $23 billion, has been endorsed by celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons.
Its biggest supporter has been Elon Musk, who often jokes about it on X, causing its value to skyrocket, and hails it as “the people’s crypto”.
In late 2022, Kabosu fell ill with leukaemia and liver disease. Sato told agencies in a recent interview that the “invisible power” of prayers from fans all over the world helped her pull through.
At 62, Sato remarked that she had become so accustomed to “unbelievable” events, that when Musk changed Twitter’s icon to Kabosu’s face last year, she “wasn’t even that surprised.”
In November last year, a $100,000 statue of Kabosu and her sofa was unveiled in a park in Sakura, crowdfunded by the crypto organization dedicated to the meme called Own The Doge.
Sato and Own The Doge have also made significant contributions to international charities, donating over $1 million to Save the Children. The NGO recognized this donation as “the single largest crypto contribution” it has ever received.
