⛤ Wolf Memes

Everyone loves memes! Anyone who says they don't is a liar. Cat memes have ruled the web since the very beginning, and dog memes? They ain't going anywhere anytime soon, for better (yay cute puppy dogs being silly) and worse (Elon Musk stop pls).

But what about wolf memes? So, I made this page to ramble about them. Why not? Awoo!

Content warning: Some of these memes are old as fuck, and can be offensive, including using outdated language. I tried to pick the ones that have aged the least worst and I won't feature anything actively, deliberately bigoted but keep this in mind.

⛤ Courage Wolf (2006) /Insanity Wolf (2009)

Back in the 2000s, Advice Animals were all the rage, with the original one being Advice Dog, this cute widdle puppy who'd give you advice straight out of hell.

Advice Dog meme. It says 'Hire clowns...FOR FUNERALS!'

This little pooch took off so hard, he got like, a billion spinoffs, and thus, Advice Animals were born, giving you advice from all walks of the animal kingdom! But because this is about wolves, we're gonna focus on Courage Wolf.

Courage Wolf isn't here to lead you astray. Instead, he's here to bring out BADASS, MANLY ALPHA WOLF ADVICE SO YOU CAN ANNIHILATE YOUR FOES AND SHOW THEM WHO'S THE MUTHAFUCKIN BOSS!!! COURAGE WOLF FEARS NOTHING, LET HIS FEARLESS BEHAVIOR INSPIRE YOU TO BE LESS OF A BABY!!

Obviously, these are rather tongue in cheek and deliberately over the top. I vividly remember these memes and being mildly amused even if as a child, I didn't get the sex references. The gimmick does run a little stale for me personally, but when it hits, it can be amusing as hell (seriously, strangling a ghost?). So, 5/10 Cheezburgers. I don't remember that fella anywhere near as his deranged cousin, Insanity Wolf.

Unlike Courage Wolf, who is a badass ready to fight anything head on, Insanity Wolf is here to fuck shit up, raping, killing and doing any other act of villainy. In a sense, he's a big bad wolf but not on the side of good. If Courage Wolf is the epic warrior werewolves you play as in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, then Insanity Wolf is the Black Spiral Dancers here solely to destroy and desecrate all that is good and holy.

I vividly remember the hell outta this meme, probably because it's all chaotic evil and as a kid I would look at these and not fully get it but go OH MY GOD THAT'S SO CRAZY (while looking over my shoulder and hoping Mom didn't see that one). Frankly, these memes are hit or miss, ranging from genuinely outrageous and over the top silly evil, to more pitiful edgelording that's aged like milk. But when it hits, it hits. I acknowledge it's super similar to the original Advice Dog, but there's something way funnier to me about Insanity Wolf as he has a strong focus on just being chaotic evil.

Essentially, it hits the same spot back in 2000-fuck that the "NO RULES, NO BOUNDARIES, HE DOESN'T FLINCH AT TORTURE" meme for me personally. 7/10 Cheezburgers.

⛤ Three Wolf Moon (2009)

A hood classic and a must-have if you're even slightly wolf-inclined, the Three Wolf Moon shirt was designed by Antonia Neshev for The Mountain Corporation. From there, it's attracted a reputation for being incredibly corny as stereotypical wolfaboo and r/thepack gear.

I mean, look at it. It's kinda goofy, but it's also genuinely pretty and it's a really good design! In fact, I actually had a variant of this shirt when I was a kid, but I outgrew it so I need to get a new one like. Right now.

Back in 2009, people started submitting joke reviews, about how it made them a total chick magnet, gave them superpowers and also made their penises so big, they can't fit at the desk they normally type reviews from!

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women

Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

Last one's not really about superpowers, but it's just an opinion I highly agree with. The more wolves the better!

Of course, the shirt itself is so famous, it's become a common meme to edit the shirt on celebrities, to draw on blorbos and to make parodies of with everything under the sun.

10/10 Cheezburgers because I want this shirt.

⛤ Sparkledogs and Gloomdogs (late 2000s?)

"But Rock, I thought this was about wolves, not dogs!"

Technically, sparkledogs and gloomdogs are often wolves or other canines, and frankly, their designs can get so out there that drawing the line between "dog" and "wolf" is tricky. So I'm including them here as they are a huge part of wolfaboo culture. Also, yes they're not conventional "memes" but they've had a long presence in furry fandom and in a way, they've spread memetically.

For those who don't know, a "Sparkledog" is a canine design that is covered in bright colors and tend to have a lot of accessories and even the glorious scene kid hair! They're most known as feral designs, but can also be anthros. I'm 90% certain you could also have like, a dog-girl kemonomimi who is a sparkledog if she's like, got rainbow hair and rainbow ears or something. There are also "Gloomdogs", the more emo cousin where instead of bright neon colors, it's a sad emo canid with BLACK emo hair and probably has a lot of scars. Regardless, these guys are strongly associated with scene and emo culture, respectively, and would've been most talked about back in the late 2000s and early 10s, pre-revival.

Sparkledogs were first spotted in the form of the popular "coloring" memes, where you'd color up a base with your favorite color, color of your wall, color of your underwear, etc. until eventually you get a rather chaotic result.

Of course, they immediately spread as a general term to describe any bright, colorful design.

These guys were controversial, with many loving them, yet they also got swept up in a lot of backlash due to the anti-Mary Sue hysteria going on at the time, with artists seeing them as these EVIL WRONG HORRIBLE THINGS. BECAUSE UH...DOGS DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE! DUH! Basically anything that wasn't a plain jane basic bitch and even inched towards alternative fashion was shat on and you'd be told you wrote the worst character ever. As if plenty of poorly written characters don't just look like any other characters. And as if people aren't alternative or generally fashionable IRL lol. This meant every furry who drew a wolf without bright colors had a massive ego for a few years. Fun.

Thankfully, the backlash has long died out, leaving behind the positivity and now there's a revival thanks to 2000s nostalgia! Shocked there wasn't more of a backlash for the backlash, considering how childish it is to be mad that a dog isn't real colors lol.

When I am a wolf or dog, I say I lean more on the gloomdog side but I love y'all sparkledogs. 100000/10 Cheezburgers!

⛤ Wolfaboo (2000s? Early 10s?)

The term "Wolfaboo" originally started as a derogatory term to refer to people obsessed with wolves and like them "too much", though these days you'll only see it used positively to describe oneself. The term is based on "Weeaboo", an extreme anime fan, which used to be derogatory as well but is now used a lot more neutrally or even as positive self-identification.

Wolfaboos love wolves like crazy, though they also tend to like dogs and other canids like foxes and jackals. And hyenas, who aren't canids but look a lot like them. They often own wolf-themed items, such as posters, books about wolves, plushies of wolves, the classic wolf t-shirt, and don't forget the wolf ears and tail somewhere in their house! There is no one right or wrong way to be a wolfaboo, though many wolfaboos are otherkin and/or furry in some shape or form and thus, feel a strong connection to wolves. Wolfaboos are also often apart of other alternative cultures, such as emo, scene, goth, etc.. I mean, what's edgier than identify with the predator animal we have feared for so long? And of course, a lot of wolfaboos are neurodivergent, with special interests and hyperfixations involving wolves in one way or another.

Wolves have been in media since like, day 1 of humanity and there's always been people who liked wolves, though I'm sure the wolfabooism we see today started sometime in the 2000s, with all this media about wolves, xenofiction in general, and the internet connecting people to furry, otherkin and roleplayer communities, allowing them to go into cyberspace as a wolf in a sense. Oh, and werewolves being depicted as cool, tough, angsty characters and not just uncontrollale beasts also helped.

Back in the early 10s, this was a straight up slur almost, because yanno. Liking wolves too much is bad because...Uhhh...They were popular? And still are? And uhhhhhh...But wolf scary? Or maybe like your favorite animal wasn't as popular and you didn't like that? Maybe it was just a weird, backhanded attempt to justify harassing otherkin and furries at the time. Sounds absolutely insane today, but this stigma on DeviantART got so bad, when I was 13-14, I used to be worried I'd get called a wolfaboo so I'd lie and say all of my canine characters were just dogs and TOTALLY none of them were wolves ever.

Today tho? I've been identifying as a wolfaboo for years! Like, why have Catholic guilt over liking wolves of all things? I mean, that shit got us dogs, my lord that was a weird time lol.

⛤ Scene Wolf (2010)

These days, being a scene kid is like, "oh cool, nice drip!" and you'll get told you're "retro", but back when scene fashion was new, it was seen as a strange, crazy trend that no one could comprehend unless you were one of them. If you weren't a scene kid yourself, chances are you either were confused as these crazy new hip kids did SHOCKING THINGS like uh...Wearing hair extensions. And going "Rawr". Or you were like, apart of a different subculture entirely and looked down on them as INFERIOR TO YOUR SUPERIOR SUBCULTURE. Even emos didn't always like scene kids!

So, with a new style rapidly growing in popularity, being worn by teenagers everywhere while everyone else was scratching their heads and acting like it was 9/11 2: The Squeakquel, someone's gonna make a meme about it.

And so, Scene Wolf was born from Insanity Wolf. Most of the memes are barely 3/10 Cheezburgers here, being your generic "WHOA TEENAGE GIRLS BEING SILLY...HOLY SHIT" topical humor that aged like an antivaxxer's child. Nothing special other than Insanity Wolf actually looks dope with that hair.

But not all of them were this bland. Some leave me with more questions than answers.

Is everything okay over there?

I also found this gif and...

10/10.

Interestingly, as of late, she can be spotted hanging out with an Emo Doge! Wow!

Scene Wolf and an Emo Doge hanging out at a mall. Above them is bright pink text that reads 'I don't know what's tighter...Our jeans, or our friendship.'

The few times I see this meme in the wild today, is as a reclaimed sparkledog loving scene kid symbol. Deserved, cuz a fierce, snarling wolf with scene hair is iconic and I ain't gonna keep pretending it's not.

⛤ Moon Moon (2013)

Speaking of Doge, this one all started with how a Tumblr user was named Moon Moon by a wolf name meme...

We got to see what Moon Moon is really truly like in the pack. And because it was 2013...Well...

And thus, Moon Moon was born.

"Moon Moon" is often used for huskies as well. In fact, I remember being in a lot of dog groups on Facebook 10+ years ago, and the second it was even a little meme-friendly, we called huskies Moon Moons.

I mean, not much to say really, it's cute wolves and dogs being super silly with text and while it's hard to look at the original Doge meme due to the Ick of Elon Musk, Moon Moon has yet to be dirtied by his filthy hands so I'm giving him 9/10 Cheezburgers, look at the woofer.

Oh! By the way, turns out my name is FIERCE STORM! AWOOOO!

⛤ Dog VS. Werewolf (2018)

Ah, finally, a werewolf here! Specifically, a cute widdle doggie contrasted with a BIG FEROCIOUS WEREWOLF GRRRR!

That's a replica of the werewolf from American Werewolf in London, fun fact! I do have a bias towards werewolves that are less traditional "full moon lose control" but I still really like the movie and of course, the werewolf in that is fucking dope as hell. Also has the most painful werewolf transformation scene I've ever witnessed, 10/10. Oh wait! The meme! Anyways, it's a simple object labelling meme but I think it hits it out of the park just by sheer contrast; cute widdle tiny Golden Retriever, BIG SCARY WEREWOLF GROWLING! GRR! And its versatile as hell, the werewolf can mean evil, scary or just a bit edgy and out there, depending on the context.

Oh there's my favorite:

Bad news: The photo was originally taken by Joe Rogan.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN!

This meme would be 10 out of 10 Cheezburgers, but I have to subtract 2 for the Joe Rogan, leaving it at 8/10 Cheezburgers.

⛤ Draw Wolf Face (2021)

Okay, this fella needs a face.

Now, give them one!

A simple draw over meme, reminds me of that ancient "Give Pikachu a face" meme. In fact, I was shocked to find out how recent it was! I mean, it's cute and fun! Happy Wolf Faces out of 10 Cheezburgers!

⛤ Werewolf Ripping Shirt (2022)

Have you ever been trapped in yourself, feeling yourself going mad as you shift into a ferocious beast, ripping out of your clothes?

Thank goodness we got art about it for us werewolves.

Let's make it even more relatable.

⛤ Sitting Werewolf

The art dates back to 2015, originally created by WolfRoad on DeviantART, but then rose to popularity as an ironic meme because...Damn. Sometimes you do feel like that.

This is how I code at my PC btw.

⛤ Dancing Wolf

Look at this fine fella dance. And it's a green screen. Put him anywhere.

Wolf Dancing Meme Wolf Meme GIFfrom Wolf Dancing Meme GIFs

10/10 Cheezburgers, enough said.

⛤ Wolp

Wolp is when wolf very silly and cute, to where calling them a "wolf" feels wrong. But obviously, they're not puppy dogs, so we call them wolps to denote that they are, indeed, silly baby wolps.

This is more a memey term for wolves but it is commonly used for memes by the otherkin and furry communities. Because we are wolps!!

A Marillion out of 10 Cheezburgers!