Origin

Daeodon at the Door, sometimes referred to as Cow at the Door, is a photoshopped black-and-white Ring doorbell camera image that shows a scale model of extinct pig-like mammal Daeodon. The image went viral in early August 2020, being circulated as a cursed image and in memes.

Origin

On July 23rd, 2020, Redditor^[1] xelfer posted a doorbell camera recording that caught a large spider crawling over the lens. The post received over 18,000 upvotes in three weeks (shown below).

Old mate kept ringing my doorbell at 2am from r/australia

On July 27th, 2020, Daily Mirror^[2] made an article about the video, using a black-and-white still image of the empty porch as seen from the camera as a cover image. On the same day, Daily Mail tweeted the article, with the tweet gaining over 470 retweets and 2,900 likes (shown below, left).

On July 29th, 2020, Twitter^[3] user @Geeky_dino posted an edited version of the image with a scale model of extinct pig-like mammal Daeodon (also known as Dinohyus) photoshopped in. The scale model is installed in the Big Bone Room located in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's basement.^[4] The tweet received over 470 retweets, 2,900 likes and 1,900 quotes in two weeks (photograph of the model and the edited image shown below, center and right).

Spread

Starting in late July 2020, the image received viral spread online, sometimes being circulated as a cursed image. For example, on July 31st, iFunny^[5] user RexyPaleontology posted a screenshot of @Geeky_dino's tweet, gaining over 860 smiles in ten days. On August 2nd, iFunny^[6] user loquat posted the original photograph of the scale model, writing about the origin of the image.

On August 2nd, YouTuber Nexpo tweeted^[7] the edited image, writing "me at 2am." The tweet received over 800 retweets and 6,300 likes in one week.

Starting on August 3rd, the edited image received viral spread on Reddit.^[8] On August 4th, Redditor^[9] semi_idiot posted the image to /r/awfuleverything where it received over 44,100 upvotes in one week. On the same day, Redditor^[10] notkhaos posted a meme based on the image to /r/dankmemes, where it received over 55,600 upvotes (shown below).

The image continued its viral spread online in the following days, with reaction memes and similar edits of the footage being posted online on Reddit, Facebook and other platforms.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References