The Doge Meme, Dogecoin, Kabosu and Cheems: The Shiba's Internet Fame

The photo that started everything: Kabosu, 2010

On February 13, 2010, Atsuko Sato, a kindergarten teacher in Sakura, Japan, posted a photo of her 6-year-old rescue Shiba Inu on her blog. The image — Kabosu tilting her head, paw resting on a sofa, eyes slightly narrowed, with floating Comic Sans captions like "wow" and "much coin" — was uploaded to Reddit in late 2010 and quickly became the defining meme of the early 2010s. That single Shiba face became the template for hundreds of millions of doge images and the literal face of Dogecoin.

From meme to money: Dogecoin

In December 2013, software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer launched Dogecoin as a parody of the booming crypto market, putting the Kabosu Shiba directly on the logo. The joke currency caught on: today Dogecoin has a market cap that has crossed tens of billions of dollars at its peak, and in 2021 a Reddit-driven effort briefly pushed its value higher. For a brief, glorious moment, a Shiba Inu from a Japanese animal shelter was the face of a global financial movement.

Cheems, Balltze, and the second wave

The next viral Shiba arrived a decade later. In 2017, a Hong Kong–based mixed-breed Shiba named Cheems (real name Balltze) exploded on TikTok and Twitter for the opposite reason Kabosu was famous: tiny legs, big cheeks, and the defiant phrase "I iz doin the best I can." Cheems, who passed away in 2023, gave the internet a new emotional vocabulary — an underdog icon used in cryptocurrency memes, gaming culture, and increasingly in the Dogelore genre. Together, Kabosu and Cheems bookend two different Shiba archetypes online: the wide-eyed, slightly smug elder and the soft, self-deprecating underdog.

Why Shiba Inus? The breed behind the meme

The Shiba's meme dominance is not random. The breed's facial anatomy is unusually expressive for a dog: deep-set almond eyes, a thick double coat that frames the face in a permanent ruffle, and cheek fur (the same urajiro cream markings required by the NIPPO standard since 1934) that exaggerates every micro-expression. Add the Shiba's signature "Shiba smile" — a slightly upturned mouth that looks like human amusement — and you get a face that reads as human to viewers. Their compact size (males 35–43 cm, females 33–41 cm) and tidy proportions also make them photographable from almost any angle, a practical reason they dominate thumbnails and reaction images.

The meme also shaped the breed's popularity

Searches for "Shiba Inu puppy" spiked each time the meme cycle peaked, and registries worldwide reported surges in inquiries. That visibility is double-edged: more people discovered the breed, but it also fueled impulse buying, which is why breed-specific rescues (including Kabosu's own network that saved the dog in the first place) are now the recommended route for anyone wanting the meme dog in real life. Responsible breeders in the US charge $1,400–$2,500 for pet-quality pups, with show- and breeding-rights dogs reaching $3,500–$5,000; rescue Shibas typically run $300–$500 and skip the puppy stage entirely.

Kabosu's legacy and what it means for the breed

Kabosu lived to a happy 17+ years, died in May 2024, and was a lifelong Shiba ambassador — calm, quiet, and very different from the "Shiba 500" zoomies stereotype. The real Shiba Inu is not the meme; it's a primitive breed near-extinct after WWII, preserved by three bloodlines (Shinshu, Mino, San'in) and designated a Japanese Natural Monument in 1936. The meme turned a near-extinct Japanese working dog into the world's most recognizable dog face. That fame now funds rescues, educates the public, and reminds everyone that behind every viral Shiba is a real animal with real needs: daily exercise, secure fencing, and a refusal to come when called when a squirrel is involved.