On having looked at this dog

lookatthisdog
Originally uploaded by sugarfreak

Perhaps you’ve seen this, since it got the BoingBoing treatment a week or so ago and promptly “blew up,” as they say. (Or perhaps you haven’t seen it, since it turns out that often things that blow up on the Internet are not really seen by all that many people.)

It’s a very funny flier that popped up in Baltimore, was photographed by someone, uploaded to Flickr, etc. (You’ll have to click on it to really read it — sorry.)
I hadn’t intended to write about it, but I keep thinking about it. I’ve looked at it repeatedly now and it makes me smile every time.

The truth is I’ve been slightly afraid that it would turn out to be some kind of stealth promotional effort for something. Like the dog would turn out to be a character in a movie, or that this would somehow all have something to do with a new kind of energy drink or whatever. Everything I say from here on out is under the assumption that that’s not the case.

Because apart from just being intrinsically amusing, what’s good about this to me is that it’s self contained. It’s not pushing you toward something else. It’s not a way to engage you in some behavior the involves buying something or going somewhere for “more information.” It’s just there: A source of pure pleasure for the taking. No strings attached.

So far as I know, whoever did it is anonymous, and that’s good too.

I noticed in the Flickr comments that somebody put the image onto shirts and whatnot, which is a little annoying, the urge to commoditize. But I guess that’s pretty minor, and this isn’t going to become Snakes On a Plane, with various people attempting to launch careers from or read societal implications into a funny joke, and convert pure pleasure into a branding event and gradually make the joke unfunny in the process.

Somebody in the BoingBoing comments suggests this is a ripoff of something else, and there are comments in both threads that riff on it in a way that tries to turn it into a “meme.” But this seems too have tapered off quickly, and I’m glad.

Some pleasures are good pleasures because they are small. They don’t need riffs. They don’t ask for more. They involve no transaction. They just are. You just take it in, and you’re happy, and that’s it.

(And as a bonus, in appearing to be a lost-dog flier, but not being one at all, this extends yesterday’s theme of things that look like other things, which I’m still pondering.)