Domo (or Domo-Kun) is a brown, wide-mouthed character created as the mascot of Japanese broadcaster NHK who became a staple of early-2000s Photoshop gags where he's blamed for fires and disasters.

Where did Domo come from?

He was designed by animator Tsuneo Gōda and debuted in NHK stop-motion sketches in December 1998 to mark the network's tenth anniversary.

The name comes from the announcer's "dōmo, konnichiwa" (translated from Japanese as roughly "well, hello there") greeting during the character's second on-air appearance. Urban Dictionary also notes that "domo" doubles as informal shorthand for "domo arigato," the Japanese word for thank you.

The common convention is to photoshop the plush Domo-Kun figure into pictures of fires, wreckage, or other catastrophes as the implied cause of the chaos, letting the visual contrast do the joke.

Is Domo still popular?

Domo is a classic mid-2000s character rather than a currently trending meme, though branded merchandise still shows up at retailers like Hot Topic.

Domo

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Published August 17, 2026

Domo is a brown, jagged-toothed Japanese mascot who became an unlikely internet fixture in the early 2000s after fans started photoshopping him into scenes of chaos and disaster. Originally created for Japan's NHK broadcaster in 1998, he crossed over to English-speaking web culture through Fark, Newgrounds, and YTMND before landing real-world retail deals with Target and 7-Eleven.

japanese internet memes photoshop memes early internet memes ytmnd memes meme merchandise

Overview

Domo (short for Domo-Kun) is a boxy brown character with a wide sawtooth mouth, tiny arms, and no dialogue beyond low grunts that sound like his own name3. On the English-speaking internet he built a reputation as a chaos gremlin, with users photoshopping him into pictures of house fires, hurricanes, and other catastrophes as the apparent culprit3. The joke plays off the contrast between his cutesy plush-toy design and the destruction pinned on him.

His official backstory adds to the absurdity: he supposedly hatched from an egg, lives underground with an old rabbit named Usajii, loves TV, passes gas when nervous, and is deathly afraid of apples because his ancestors went extinct eating them3. That bizarre character sheet gave fans plenty to riff on, and Domo was treated as a blank template for gags and Photoshop composites rather than a strictly canonical mascot2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

NHK television (origin) / Fark, Newgrounds, YTMND (viral spread)

Creator

Tsuneo Gōda

Date

1998

Domo-Kun was created by animator Tsuneo Gōda and introduced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK in December 1998, made for a set of stop-motion sketches marking the tenth anniversary of the network's satellite service2. Gōda designed him from loose shape sketches while brainstorming a mascot, and the name came from an announcer's "dōmo, konnichiwa" (roughly "well, hello there") greeting during the character's second on-air appearance3.

He first showed up online in Japan around 2001, when threads about him appeared on the imageboard 2channel, often rendered in ASCII art3. Around the same time he began popping up in Newgrounds flash animations built by fans overseas3.

How It Spread

The English-language web really latched onto Domo on November 28, 2002, when a photoshopped image of two Domo-Kuns chasing kittens hit Fark with the caption "Every Time You Masturbate, God Kills A Kitten," a line that took on its own life as a standalone catchphrase3. A few weeks later, on December 16, 2002, Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp teamed with i-Mockery.com to release the browser game Domo-Kun Angry Smashfest, which won the site's Weekly User's Choice vote that week3.

YTMND picked him up next. The first Domo-themed YTMND page went live on July 13, 2004, and more than 150 spinoffs followed3. His official English-language site DomoNation.com was registered on October 31, 2005 and grew into a hub for forums, news, and games3.

Retail chased the trend in September 2008, when Target made Domo its official Halloween mascot with posters, plush toys, and endcap displays rolling out across US stores1. A shopper on the Slave to Target blog wrote that a child walking past the display called him a "Poop Monster," a nickname that stuck in casual fan chatter1. 7-Eleven followed in 2009 with a tie-in that put Domo on commercials, limited-edition cups, and food packaging, and TokyoPop published an English-language Domo manga that same September3. Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic kept carrying Domo plushies, apparel, and accessories well past the initial retail push4.

How to Use This Meme

The typical Domo edit drops the character, usually the widely circulated photograph of two plush Domo-Kuns standing in front of a black cat, into a picture of some disaster (a house fire, tornado damage, wrecked cars) as the implied cause of the mess. The gag works because the tiny brown mascot is visually incongruous with destruction, so most edits skip a caption entirely and let the image do the joke3.