In 2010, a woman in Sakura, Japan, posted photos of her genuine Shiba Inu in her digital magazine. The dog, Kabosu, shot her owner a wide -eyed look, a comic image that was quickly thrown from Tumblr to Twitter on Facebook and the rest of the Internet.
A meme legend was born. Someone in Reddit called the dog “Doge”, a meaningless nickname that stuck. Another undermine a cryptocurrency in the name of Doge.
Now, 15 years later, in the rapid ignition of the internet culture, Doge is considered very old. But try to tell this about Elon Musk, who has co-chosen “Doge” for the name of his attempt to destroy the Federal Government machinery-officially, the government efficiency department.
One of the tens of old-internet ephemera that are mature in his daily vocabulary. A brief move through Mr Musk’s X food reveals a manager of aging and tongue – Dad jokes about many online. They include:
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Frequent references to “420”, a term of the semi -century jargon for smoking marijuana that was said to have started in a high school in northern California. (After smoking what looked like an open live in Podcast Joe Rogan, Mr. Musk briefly changed his bio on Twitter to “420.”)
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Regularly including the number “69”, a jargon term for a sexual act that has been around at least in the sutra dagger. (Mr. Musk, who is 53 years old, is fast to emphasize that his birthday falls 69 days after 4/20.)
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Calling things he supports “epic” or “grounded”. These are surnames favored by frequent Reddit users and popular by fans of Joss Wheedon, a director who created the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in the late 1990s and continued to run two from the films Avengers. (Mr. Musk has said that he wants to create “artificial” intelligence “based” with his chatbot, Grok, and most recently told Investors Tesla that he was expecting a “epic” 2026 ahead for the company.)
Mr Musk’s slang may seem incomprehensible to people who are not caught in the internet culture. But for his fans, Mr Musk’s date sensitivity are a kind of food for online comfort – and a knot for a common, damaged worldview.
Mr. Musk’s posts are full of war language and invasion portrayed in video games. This busy language is an attractive cry for players and others from Mr. Musk’s many online internet – if they have a common political ideology – see someone who shares their skepticism of authority and their belief that America has woke up “. For them, Mr. Musk’s internet updates for what will encounter Doge to encounter more honest than a press or press conference or – the worst of all – something they read in the main media. (Is a strategy reminiscent of the use of Donald Trump’s Twitter to signal originality during its first administration.)
“We are living in the revenge of the Nerds era,” said Hasan Picer, a popular, politically progressive online personality who is not a fan of Mr. Musk in an interview. “This is the true, current retaliation of Nerds.”
Mr. Musk did not respond to a comment request.
Everyone’s photo of Mr. Musk who holds a chain chain while wearing sunglasses “deal with it” inside (another meme) represents a triumph of the Nerd culture with which he has long been identified. On Wednesday, he participated in the first meeting of President Trump’s new cabinet, dressed in a T -shirt saying “technological support”.
His fans speak with him again in his language. They send suggestions on how Doge can fix the government by dismantling its entire sections, often encoded in the language of images usually found on Reddit. (Wojak, a harshly drawn character on the 4Chan messaging board, is a perennial favorite.)
Mr. Musk produces more than 200 million x followers X for help in online surveys. And he listens. The conversation becomes a reaction of internal jokes for the billionaire, who once hosted “Saturday Night Live” and boasts of his sense of humor. (Mr. Musk sometimes overestimates his popularity in the comedy world. As soon as he joined the comedian Dave Chappelle in a scene in San Francisco. He was upset.)
“Dokush can find his own community, even if it is a frozen community in 2010,” said Brian Feldman, a internet culture writer who has long followed Mr. Musk’s exploration, said in an interview.
But for those caught in modern internet culture, Mr. Musk’s style of communication is far from trend. This is especially so when even current terms like “without a lid” (translation: no lie) or “Lowkey ra” (faded to popularity or importance) is already indicating their age. As with the latest questions about Mr. Musk for superior video game skills, they see cracks in his Supernerd facade.
“More than people would like to accept, they often become trapped online they encounter,” Mr. Feldman.
Last week, Mr. Musk appeared at a conservative political conference wearing dark sunglasses, a large gold chain and a blouse that was not “delayed” but was working on “side research” (a common practice in the spread of role -playing games). He played the quote from Hindu Bhagavad Gita’s writing that Robert Oppenheimer said he was passing in his mind as he tested the first atomic bomb: Now, I have been death. The destroyer of the worlds.
“I have become a meme,” Mr. Musk said in front of a largely silent crowd. “Has to live the dream and there is a meme to live, and that’s almost what is happening.”
Even some of his most ardent followers on x recovered. “Elon Musk fell from Lowkey,” wrote one user.
Mr. Musk’s online dictionary is a 2010 memory, when the Nerd culture was contagious. Reddit was a meme factory for favorites like lolcats and icanhazcheeseeseburger. Players gathered in online forums or online roles playing games to hang and fight through digital dungeons.
This was also the onset of Mr Musk’s metamorphosis from simply billionaire to celebrities online. That year, he appeared like him in the second film “Iron Man”. His fans online ate it.
All this also coincided with the erection of web 2.0, a more social version of the Internet. Twitter – Long before Mr. Musk buy it and renamed it – it was a city square. Facebook moved beyond the “groups” status and updates, a feature that allowed people to form their smaller communities. The Chat 4chan forum was full of anonymous, often angry online trolls, who were linked to vulgar behavior.
While the online groups had existed for years, the newest social networks were more knit and rewarded the behavior that Mr. Musk often exhibits today. The right type of posts could take steam and shoot online.
The provocatives moved beyond the small -scale trolling in massive aggressive movements, such as Gamergate, a targeted excitement campaign against a female game designer by video game players, who claimed she represented a lack of ethics in game journalism. It dealt with a social movement that fought diversity, feminism, and what players saw as highly progressive value in film, television, literature and video game industry – a view it shares Mr. Musk.
Gamergate also signaled that digital demonstrations can, for better or worse, lead to real -world changes.
Mr. Musk’s Tweeting style changed from the anodyne company’s updates to more open trolling. In 2018, he tweed that he had secured a buying offer for Tesla for a $ 420 share price. Once, when a car competitive company tried to underestimate it at the price, Mr. Musk said he would leave the cost of Tesla Model X at $ 69,420.
“Gauntlet is rejected!” He announced on Twitter. “The prophecy is fulfilled.”
Unlike other technology billionaires, who seemed to be living from regular internet people and became less online, Mr. Musk was making themselves relays with memes, absurdities and relentless posting. And parts of the online world embraced him.
“Many people find him dismissal,” said Coldalealing, a nickname cultural commentator who regularly follows Mr. Musk and other social movements online in an interview. “But there are a lot of people with whom he resonates, and although I think it’s 10 percent of the Max population, it’s a 10 percent influential.”
Mr. Musk’s online life became even more bombastic after the Pandemia Covid began in 2020. He attacked Tesla short retailers and California state officials who would not let him reopen a Tesla factory. In 2023, he even photos with direct tweets of himself traveling to Mark Zuckerberg’s home, threatening to fight the chief executive of Facebook. (They were, at the time, in the throes of organizing a real combat match between them. It never happened.)
He posted himself playing Elden Ring, Path of Exile and other video games like Diablo IV. One of the richest men in the world told players that he was one of them.
Mark Kern, a former executive video game in Blizzard, wrote in a post last week that people should not be confused with players. “We are forged by the boss’s endless battles against impossible chances. We do not give up. We do not stop. We are the terminators of the culture struggle.”
“Yes,” Mr. Musk wrote, quoting the post.
Conservatives who do not spend much time online have also embraced Mr Musk’s image taking a chain sold on what they see as a swollen federal government, even if many of them are not exactly sure what they are trying to say or when they are thought to laugh.
“Validation is a certificate from people who have no idea what they are saying, but still think they are speaking this language of experts,” said Mr. Feldman, internet culture writer.
But Mr. Musk may be finding his borders online. It was difficult for some of his followers to shake the stage appearance of last week at the Conservative Conference of Political Action, which reminded them that it is difficult to stay well when you are, in fact, not too young. (Kabosu did not live to see the meme that she inspired to enter American political life. 18-year-old Shiba Inu died last year.)
“Someone else feels the vibe change in tpot/tech?” An X user wrote, referring to an online community called “This part of Twitter”, which is mainly composed of technology workers who have historically warmed to Mr. Musk. In other words, Mr. Musk was starting to look a little out of touch and increasingly non -propullary.
However, Mr. Musk seems to be doubled. His post on X has increased in recent weeks, several days counting in hundreds. And he is still being proven by his fans.
On Thursday, Mr. Musk posted another meme on his X account – one of the dozens of posts he had made that morning. In it was a photo of Mel Gibson like Mad Max in The Road Warrior, the act of action in the early 1980s for a nomad with firearms sailing in a post -apocalyptic world. In the bold letters, Meme said: “Ladies, it’s time to start thinking about whether the boy you are meeting has the potential of post -apocalyptic warfare.” (Buffs movie may notice that Max’s wife and daughter were killed by a bike bike in the first “Mad Max” movie.)
One follower responded with a photo of a man dressed in a Trojan helmet and armored body forces with an attack rifle on one side and a spear on the other. Was one of more than 7,000 answers.
“Yes,” the follower said, adding a fire emoji.