About

Advice Dog is an image macro series that features a picture of the head of a smiling puppy on a color wheel background split into six separate colors. Usual derivatives are often accompanied by two lines of text written in a guidance or advising format with the advice given usually being very poor, unethical or deplorable.

Since its debut, the series has spawned dozens of spin-offs referred to as Advice Animals. In these variations, memers replace the dog's head with a different animal's or a human's head, adding advice that is reflective of the character's archetype personality and using the same two-line image macro formula.

Origin

The original blank template originates from the Super Mario fan-site The Mushroom Kingdom^[1] messageboard. On September 4th, 2006, in the thread "Guide to Kissing,"^[2] user Mariko recalled his desire to request a role in his school's production of The Diary of Anne Frank^[3] for the sole purpose of playing the role of a boy who has a kissing scene. In the thread, Mariko asks for recollections, personal experiences and advice.

Among several replies citing each of the poster's poor experience with relationships, user TEM^[4] posted the first reply of "Just do it, man." Days later on September 7th, TEM posted the original picture of his dog Boba Fett's ^[5] head on a color wheel background (shown below, left and right. TEM would confirm in the same thread that he created the image of his dog with reply #26: "I made the picture. That's my dog Boba Fett. After I had made it I said the almost exact same thing as IS."

Spread

Within two weeks of the post, the meme began spreading from the messageboard to other areas of the internet. on September 17th, 2006, a YMTND ^[5] user LizardDude posted the page "Boba Stares," which features featuring the image and the song "Piano Sonata No. 13 in C-Sharp Minor" by the composer Beethoven. Days later, on September 21st, Another YMNTD^[6] user, TEM006, posted the page "Happy Pup," which features multiple duplicates of the color wheel image with the text, "You're the man now, happy dog" (shown below).

On June 24th, 2008, the first Advice Dog entry appeared on Encyclopedia Dramatica. ^[7]

The following year, on March 19th, 2009, MemeGenerator user Ferenc Somos posted the template on the site, which played a vital role in the popularization of the meme.

Various Examples

Related Memes

Advice Animals

Advice Animals, sometimes referred to as "Advice Dog spin-offs", are a type of image macro series featuring animals of some kind (including humans) that are accompanied by captioned text to represent a character trait or an archetype that fits the role of a "stock character." ^[7] While many Advice Animals use a color wheel background, some use unedited versions of the original photo.

Anxiety Cat

Anxiety Cat is an advice animal image macro series similar to Socially Awkward Penguin and Paranoid Parrot featuring a frightened-looking black cat accompanied by captions related to paranoia and social distress.

Search Interest

External References