About

Awkwardly Staring Dogs, also known as Dogs Awkwardly Staring or Confused Dogs, refers to a greenscreen template of a black labrador dog staring at a brown boykin spaniel dog with so-called "awkward" expressions that makes them look shocked at something off-camera. The meme template trended on TikTok in late 2023, paired with a CapCut template called "Awkwardly starring." Most of the memes with the dogs were paired with the song "Weatherman" by Hank Williams Jr. The original video of the black dog was posted to China's TikTok app Douyin in late 2022. The original video of the brown dog was posted to TikTok in 2023.

Origin

The original video of the black dog awkwardly staring was posted to Douyin^[1] on December 14th, 2022, by user 家有团长 which translates to "Head of the family." On Douyin,^[1] the video received roughly 200,000 likes in 11 months (recording shown below).

The video of the brown dog used in the template was posted by TikToker^[2] @rigley.beans on September 20th, 2023, gaining roughly 8.5 million plays and 906,900 likes in two months (shown below).

In late October 2023, the video of the first dog from Douyin^[1] gained viral reposts on TikTok^[3] and Instagram.^[4] This led to both dogs being combined into one meme template by CapCut^[5] user RikaT101 on October 22nd, 2023, who titled it "Awkwardly starring." On October 22nd, RikaT101 used their template in a TikTok^[6] video which gained roughly 3,400 plays in 17 days (shown below).

Spread

After the template's virality on CapCut,^[5] TikTokers started making memes with it, using the same sound as @rikat101's original TikTok.^[6] For instance, on October 23rd, 2023, TikToker^[7] @druminix used the template and also referenced the Cat Driving a Car template, gaining roughly 4 million plays and 693,100 likes in 16 days (shown below, left).

On October 27th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @amor_silver96 posted a similar video using the template and sound, receiving roughly 4.8 million plays and 945,800 likes in 12 days (shown below, right).

By November 8th, 2023, the original CapCut^[5] template had amassed over 211,200 uses.

"Weatherman" by Hank Williams Jr.

Soon after the template's virality, users on TikTok started pairing the template with the song "Weatherman" by Hank Williams Jr.^[9] Videos using the song and template predominantly surfaced on October 25th, 2023, evident in a post from TikToker^[10] @megomaster which received roughly 8.7 million plays and 1.5 million likes in two weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References