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What the Dog Doin'
Part of a series on Vine. [View Related Entries]
About
What the Dog Doin' or What da Dog Doin' refers to a viral video uploaded to Vine in which four men reach into a small tin of mints at the same time, followed by a dog, resulting in one man asking, "what the dog doin'?" The video went viral in the years following its release, seeing a significant increase in popularity in 2021.
Origin
On April 9th, 2014, Vine[1] comedian and Twitter[2] user @TonyBakerComedy tweeted a link to a now-deleted Vine video titled "WHEN YOU PULL OUT MINTS IN PUBLIC" featuring Viners King Bach, Damaine Radcliff, MrNateJackson, Liane V and Neli Mac. The video was archived by Vine Activity[11] on April 10th. In the video, four people reach into a small tin of Icebreakers mints, followed by a dog hand reaching in as well, resulting in one man asking, "What the dog doin'?"
Spread
On February 1st, 2019, Twitter[12] user @StacksBreadup tweeted the video, writing, "I’ve been looking for this video for YEARS." The post gained over 2.4 million views, 55,000 retweets and 162,00 likes in two years.
I’ve been looking for this video for YEARS. pic.twitter.com/KsxXh2YrpM
— Dior Sawaj Papi (@StacksBreadup) February 2, 2019
In the following days, @StacksBreadup's post received viral spread through reposts on Instagram and iFunny. For example, on February 3rd, 2019, iFunny[13] user biged403 reposted the video, with the post garnering over 109,800 smiles in two years. An August 14th YouTube[3] reupload of the video gained over 800,000 views in two years. A September 20th, 2019, repost by iFunny[14] user N_2_O received over 126,400 smiles in the same period.
Prior to March 19th, 2020, an unknown user posted the earliest known meme based on the video, adding a humorous image macro as a punchline. On March 19th, Instagram[15] user qlewy made the earliest found repost of the video, with the post gaining over 37,500 views and 8,300 likes in one year (shown below).
On April 29th, 2020, YouTuber[8] aitch reuploaded a video overexplaining the video comically (authorship unconfirmed; shown below).
In the following months, the video received viral spread through reposts. On October 3rd, it was shared by Instagram[4] page @loudequalsfunny, garnering over 126,000 views and 28,000 likes. On November 4th, YouTuber twomad used the sentence in a vlog, garnering over 1.7 million views in seven months (shown below).
As the video gained viral success, people began using the phrase "what the dog doin'" alongside content showing dogs doing strange things (example shown below).
Memes referencing the video, as well as the use of the phrase in post text, continued to rise in popularity over the course of 2021. On March 4th, Twomad posted an image of himself to Instagram[9] sitting on a couch captioned, "Still contemplating what the dog doin 💭" garnering over 107,000 likes in three months.
On April 23rd, 2021, TikToker[6] @okcron posted a skit referencing the video, garnering over 1.2 million views in two months (shown below).
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6954395605980466437
On May 8th, Instagram[5] user andrew_lastname posted a video splicing the audio with a clip from SpongeBob SquarePants, garnering over 321,000 views in a month (shown below, left). On May 21st, Instagram[7] page @repostrandy posted a video referencing the video, garnering over 231,000 views and 55,000 likes in three weeks (shown below, right).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Internet Archive – Tony Baker
[2] Twitter – @tonybakercomedy
[3] YouTube – What the dog doing? Vine
[4] Instagram – Legendary status
[5] Instagram – what the dog doin
[7] Instagram – repostrandy
[9] Twomad – contemplating
[11] VineActivity – WHEN YOU PULL OUT MINTS IN PUBLIC
[12] Twitter – StacksBreadup
