WHARRGARBL / Sprinkler Dog

About

Origin

While its start is unclear, Wharrgarbl appears to have originated from the Ars Technica OpenForum’s off topic forum, the Lounge. It appears to have been used as a “replacement meme” to keep members occupied, almost as a joke by the moderators to amuse other members, but it lasted longer than thought. This could classify it as a forced meme.

Since the 2008 presidential campaign, wharrgarbl has been frequently used on website Fark.com in political threads where a person continues to spew rhetoric in the face of often conclusive evidence to the contrary. Examples:
http://www.fark.com/comments/5768448/Doubling-down-on-yesterdays-wharrgarbl-Fox-News-chief-says-NPR-is-run-by-Nazis (Nov 2010)
http://www.fark.com/comments/4449910/Theres-WHARRGARBL-then-theres-this-Barney-Frank-Chris-Dodd-will-be-designing-cars-you-are-expected-to-drive (Mar 2009)
http://www.fark.com/comments/3802772/Is-John-McCain-secretly-a-woman (Aug 2008)
*Not used in the headline, but in the comments (Thanks to Matt M. for this paragraph)

By now, it has evolved into representing the original WHARRGARBL dog, to incoherent ramblings, to anything holding its mouth open and being showered upon. The picture usually is captioned “WHARRGARBL”, and may be in poster form with WHARRGARBL in the title and subtitle.

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Wharrgarbl was started in early 2008, where interest died down but saw a sudden recent spark in ’09.

You can find Wharrgarbl pictures in many places now, including:

A random rant about Wharrgarbl

A Wharrgarbl thread on Ars Technica.

The Urban Dictionary entry.

Wharrgarbl’s Facebook page