If a Dog Wore Pants

Origin

The meme is a pair of drawings posted with the question "If a dog wore pants, would he wear them like this or like this?" In one, the pants cover all four legs; in the other, only the hind two.

On December 28th, 2015, the Facebook page Utopian Raspberry – Modern Oasis Machine posted the two illustrations with that caption. Per Know Your Meme's account, the post passed 4,800 shares, 1,500 likes and 400 comments within 48 hours.

The artist was identified as well. A Washington Post reporter traced the drawing to a 19-year-old in Belgium who gave his name as Norbert K. and said he had been inspired after seeing a dog wearing pants on its back legs.

Spread

Twitter carried it out of Facebook. Jared Keller, then deputy editor of Maxim, posted the image, and within two days the tweet passed 35,900 likes and 31,000 retweets. From there it moved through Reddit and other platforms, circulating through the end of 2015.

What made it grow is that there is no answer. Covering all four legs is faithful to the definition of pants as garments that cover legs; covering only the hind two matches how a person wears them. Neither position can be refuted, so the argument never ends — which suits the internet's habit of taking trivial questions extremely seriously.

American outlets covered the dispute directly. CBS News introduced the question by comparing it to "the dress" that had split the internet earlier that year, and CBC and others reported that the internet was divided again.

Variations

Substitutions followed immediately: images asking the same question about other animals and objects, and eventually self-referential jokes such as "if pants wore pants."

How it is used

• As a figure for taking sides over a trivial question with no correct answer
• As an example of an argument about how far a definition should extend
• As an image game, asking the same question about a different subject
• As a reference point when recalling the internet arguments of 2015

Sources

• Know Your Meme, "If a Dog Wore Pants" — the December 28th, 2015 Facebook post and its 48-hour figures, Jared Keller's tweet and its metrics, and the Washington Post's tracing of the artist to a 19-year-old Belgian named Norbert K.
• CBS News, "First #TheDress, now this: How should a dog wear pants?" — press coverage of the debate
• CBC, "Dog pants debate has the internet divided – again" — reporting on its spread