# Domo 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. ## 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 name[3]. 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 culprit[3]. 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 them[3]. 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 mascot[2]. ## 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 catchphrase[3]. 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 week[3]. YTMND picked him up next. The first Domo-themed YTMND page went live on July 13, 2004, and more than 150 spinoffs followed[3]. His official English-language site DomoNation.com was registered on October 31, 2005 and grew into a hub for forums, news, and games[3]. 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 stores[1]. 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 chatter[1]. 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 September[3]. Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic kept carrying Domo plushies, apparel, and accessories well past the initial retail push[4]. ## How to Use 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 joke[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Domo? 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[3]. ### 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[2]. ### What does Domo mean? 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[3]. Urban Dictionary also notes that "domo" doubles as informal shorthand for "domo arigato," the Japanese word for thank you[5]. ### How do you use Domo? 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[3]. ### 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[4]. ## References 1. [https://slavetotarget.blogspot.com/2008/09/domo-for-target.html]() 2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domo_(NHK_mascot)]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/domo]() 4. [https://www.hottopic.com/search?q=domo]() 5. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Domo]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/domo Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library