Stop the Dog from Barking
TL;DR · Origin‘Oi! Make that dog stop barking!’ is not a story told on a radio show but a recording of something that actually happened. It is understood to have been captured …
Origin
‘Oi! Make that dog stop barking!’ is not a story told on a radio show but a recording of something that actually happened. It is understood to have been captured around 2011 at the Songsan Jugong 2 apartment complex in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province.
The content is simple. A dog is barking furiously and its owner does nothing, so a resident bellows out of his window every time it starts again. The voice is loud enough to carry across the whole complex, and listening closely you can hear other voices behind it apparently egging him on — he was not the only one enduring it.
The man later explained himself. He had come back from the funeral of a close friend’s father, had been awake for three nights, and was trying to snatch a little sleep before leaving for work when the barking made that impossible and he snapped.
Spread
The clip was turned into shareable form as soon as it appeared. The line is short and the delivery unmistakable, which made it easy to imitate, and enormous numbers of edits laid the audio alone over other footage.
The man himself has never been identified. More than a decade later several YouTubers went to the complex in person to ask around, and came away with nothing. It is one of the best-known Korean memes whose original subject remains unknown.
Usage
- Quoted verbatim when your surroundings are too noisy
- Aimed online at someone whose remarks feel loud or unnecessary
- As audio to lay over unrelated footage
The second use amounts to comparing what someone said to a dog barking, which makes it a good deal more aggressive than it looks. People use it lightly because the source clip is funny, but directed at a person it is an insult.
Sources
- Namuwiki, ‘Oi, make that dog stop barking’ — the incident at the Uijeongbu complex around 2011; the man’s own account of the three sleepless nights; the neighbours’ voices in the background; the fact that he was never identified
- Funnypani, ‘The original “make that dog stop barking” clip and its parodies’ — the source video and derivative works
