# Advice Dog > Advice Dog is a 2006 image macro of a smiling puppy on a rainbow color wheel background, paired with two lines of intentionally absurd advice that spawned the Advice Animals genre. Advice Dog is an image macro featuring a smiling puppy's head on a rainbow color wheel background, paired with two lines of intentionally bad or absurd advice. First posted in September 2006 on The Mushroom Kingdom fan forum, it became one of the internet's earliest and most influential meme templates, spawning the entire Advice Animals genre that dominated online humor from 2009 through the early 2010s. ## Origin On September 4th, 2006, a user named Mariko posted a thread called "Guide to Kissing" on The Mushroom Kingdom, a Super Mario fan forum[3]. Mariko talked about wanting to audition for a school production of *The Diary of Anne Frank* just to play a character with a kissing scene, and asked fellow posters for relationship advice[3]. A few days later on September 7th, another forum member called TEM posted the now-iconic image: his dog Boba Fett's head slapped onto a color wheel background[3]. TEM confirmed authorship in reply #26 of the same thread, writing that he made the picture and that the dog was his[3]. The image started as a jokey response to the kissing advice thread, but users on the forum quickly began adding their own captions. - **Platform:** The Mushroom Kingdom forum (source image), 4chan / YTMND (viral spread) - **Creator:** TEM (original image creator, dog owner), Mariko (thread starter) - **Date:** 2006 ## Overview The format is dead simple: a golden-colored puppy head centered on a six-segment color wheel, with bold white Impact font text split across the top and bottom. The top line sets up a premise, and the bottom line delivers advice that's terrible, unethical, or wildly dangerous. The humor comes from the contrast between the innocent, happy-looking dog and the awful guidance it dispenses. Think "Do the laundry / Rob a bank" or "Buy a pet tiger / Let it sleep in your bed"[4]. The dog in the photo is a real pet named Boba Fett[3]. The color wheel background gives the image a hypnotic, almost aggressive cheerfulness that makes the dark advice hit harder. ## How It Spread The meme jumped off The Mushroom Kingdom forum within two weeks. On September 17th, 2006, YTMND user LizardDude posted a page called "Boba Stares" featuring the image set to Beethoven's "Piano Sonata No. 13 in C-Sharp Minor"[3]. Days later on September 21st, another YTMND user named TEM006 posted "Happy Pup," which showed multiple copies of the color wheel image with the text "You're the man now, happy dog"[3]. The meme picked up steam on 4chan's /b/ board through 2007 and into the summer of 2008[1]. Encyclopedia Dramatica created its first Advice Dog entry on June 24th, 2008[3]. On July 5th, 2008, Advice Dog landed the 76 millionth GET on /b/, which some users saw as forced meme status while others took it as validation[1]. The real explosion came when MemeGenerator user Ferenc Somos uploaded the Advice Dog template on March 19th, 2009[3]. Easy-to-use generators meant anyone could make their own version without Photoshop skills. By early 2009, the floodgates opened for spinoffs, and the Advice Animals genre was born[1]. ## How to Use The standard Advice Dog format follows a two-line structure: - **Top text:** A normal-sounding premise or first half of advice - **Bottom text:** A punchline that twists the advice into something absurd, dangerous, or morally questionable The humor typically works through misdirection. The top line sounds reasonable, then the bottom line goes completely off the rails. Common approaches include pairing mundane activities with criminal behavior, giving sincere-sounding advice that would cause harm, or combining two unrelated instructions in a way that implies chaotic logic[4]. The background is always the six-color wheel, and the puppy head stays centered. Most generators handle the formatting automatically. The key is keeping both lines short and punchy. ## Cultural Impact Advice Dog's biggest legacy isn't the meme itself but what it created: the entire Advice Animals format[3]. The template of "animal head on color background + two-line caption" became the dominant meme structure of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Without Advice Dog, there's no Courage Wolf, no Philosoraptor, no Socially Awkward Penguin, no Insanity Wolf[1][5]. By late 2008 and early 2009, users on 4chan were pumping out Advice Dog spinoffs at a rapid pace, each replacing the puppy with a different animal or character that had its own personality archetype[1]. Encyclopedia Dramatica cataloged dozens of these variants, from Foul Bachelor Frog to Success Kid to Paranoid Parrot[1]. The format also migrated far beyond imageboards. MemeGenerator and later Imgur and Reddit's r/AdviceAnimals subreddit made the format accessible to mainstream internet users. The Advice Animals subreddit became one of Reddit's largest communities and was a default subreddit for years. Know Your Meme documented the meme's full origin story, including messages from the dog's real owner[2]. ## Fun Facts - The dog's real name is Boba Fett, named after the Star Wars bounty hunter[3]. - The original image was posted as a response to a teenager asking for kissing advice on a Mario fan forum, making it one of the most unlikely origin stories for a genre-defining meme[3]. - On 4chan, the original image briefly circulated on /mu/ as a fake album cover to confuse newcomers before becoming an advice meme[1]. - As of May 2013, "advice dog" returned more search results than "my little pony" on Google[1]. - The meme has been called by at least seven different names including "Persuasive Puppy," "Crafty Clever Canine of Conscience Corruption," and simply "that fucking rainbow dog"[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Advice Dog? Advice Dog is an image macro meme featuring a puppy's head on a rainbow color wheel background with two lines of intentionally bad advice in Impact font[3]. ### Where did Advice Dog come from? It originated on The Mushroom Kingdom, a Super Mario fan forum, on September 7th, 2006, when user TEM posted a photo of his dog Boba Fett on a color wheel background[3]. ### What does Advice Dog mean? The meme is built on irony: a cute, innocent-looking puppy dispensing advice that ranges from mildly unethical to genuinely dangerous, playing the contrast between appearance and content for laughs[4]. ### How do you use Advice Dog? Write a two-line caption using the Advice Dog template. The top line sets up seemingly normal advice, and the bottom line twists it into something absurd or terrible[4]. ### Is Advice Dog still popular? Advice Dog is a classic meme. Its original format is rarely used in new posts, but its legacy lives on through the Advice Animals genre it spawned, which shaped internet humor for years[5]. ### Who is the dog in Advice Dog? The dog is a pet named Boba Fett, owned by forum user TEM from The Mushroom Kingdom messageboard[3]. ### What was the first Advice Animal? Advice Dog itself was the first Advice Animal, created in 2006. The spinoff variants like Courage Wolf and Insanity Wolf followed in late 2008 and early 2009[1]. ### Why is the background a rainbow? TEM placed his dog's photo on a six-segment color wheel background, which gave the image a distinctive, almost hypnotic look that became the standard template for all Advice Animals[3]. ### When did Advice Dog go viral? The meme spread from its origin forum within two weeks, hitting YTMND by September 17th, 2006, then 4chan through 2007-2008, and finally reaching mass popularity through MemeGenerator in March 2009[3]. ### What are some examples of Advice Dog? Classic examples include "Do the laundry / Rob a bank" and "Abuse Kittens / Blame your neighbors," pairing innocent premises with absurd or terrible conclusions[4][1]. ## References 1. [The Mushroom Kingdom: Super Mario Bros. downloads and information]() 2. [Advice Dog - Encyclopedia Dramatica]() 3. [Know Your Meme: Advice Dog We've got everything you ever needed to know about Advice Dog, including messages from the dog's... – @knowyourmeme on Tumblr]() 4. [Advice Dog - Know Your Meme]() 5. [This Man]() 6. [Advice Dog - Urban Dictionary]() 7. [The Diary of Anne Frank (play)]() 8. [The Diary of Anne Frank (play) - Wikipedia]() 9. [An Error Has Occurred!]() 10. [Advice Dog Meme — Origin, Meaning, History | MemesGuy]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/advice-dog Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library