Assignment # 5 Advice Dog- Joseph Ricasa

The advice animal format for memes has become a great example for the explanation of memes. They are all very simple image macros, featuring an animal that represents a specific theme. Foul bachelor frogs are for foul bachelors, awkward penguins are for representing awkward situations or people. The meme that started this trend off, however, “Advice Dog” is often forgotten amongst the plethora of spin offs. Advice Dog is a picture of an exuberant Labrador retriever, and its gimmick is offering users the worst advice possible. 

The origin of the Advice Dog meme came from a forum dedicated to the Mario Brother’s videogame franchise. A user was requesting advice on kissing from the forum. Evan Herrington replied to the thread with a picture of his Labrador retriever with the caption, “Just do it, man”. Since then the meme has been used to dispel terrible advice across the internet. 

See more on Know Your Meme
See more on Know Your Meme

 This is the original advice animal, but it is nowhere near as popular as its spin offs. According to its “google insights” page it peaked in 2009 and has been on steady decline since then. Though it has now falling into obscurity, the memes that have spun off of from its format are incredibly popular. The advice animals subreddit has over 3 million subscribers. 

Sources:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/advice-dog
http://www.reddit.com/r/adviceanimals