Bunny the TikTok-famous dog: All the memes about his existential crisis
TikTok has been home to so many viral things and the origin of many memes. One of the latest sensations is Bunny the talking dog. No, Bunny doesn’t enunciate human syllables with his lolling tongue & doggy jowls. Although that would be pretty cool (and sort of creepy), Bunny actually communicates with electric buttons.
Essentially, Bunny speaks using a keyboard of sorts. Each button plays the audio of a single word when pressed. In this way Bunny is able to communicate wants and feelings to his owner Devine. It’s pretty reminiscent of how scientists trained apes to speak using sign language. In theory, the apes used their prehensile fingers and Bunny uses his buttons.
Not everyone’s ecstatic about Bunny’s amazing linguistic displays. Some think it’s a trick designed to fool gullible people. Others are made nervous by a dog who seems to be getting closer & closer to self awareness. Will Bunny’s ability to communicate lead him to an existential crisis? Here are all the memes saying it will.
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The original Bunny at work
You won’t be able to understand any of the memes if you’re not familiar with Bunny’s brilliance.
The meaning of life
Everything’s chill until the dog starts questioning the meaning of life.
High-key scares?
Bunny has demands.
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Should your friend own you?
Some people think humans shouldn’t own animals. Do dogs think so too?
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Why daddy leave, hmm?
Yikes. Things hit the fan when you get to hear about your dog’s daddy issues.
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The terror of death
That last bit where “Bunny” keeps repeating himself sounds like it’s straight out of a horror movie.
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Gone
The idea of hearing bad news from an animal is somehow ten times scarier than hearing it from a human.
New buttons
The question is, does Bunny have enough buttons to request another button?
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Pop idol secrets
Go ahead. Go look up if that Avril fact is true. We won’t judge you.
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Reproductive rights
Will you ever be able to let your pet be spayed again after that?
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A dog versed in economics
This one makes Bunny sound like a textbook.
The argument for dog sentience & self-awareness
While we’re at it we figured we’d throw in an info tidbit about whether or not dogs are widely accepted as sentient & self-aware. After all, there’s nothing to worry about if Bunny can’t even recognize himself in the mirror, right? For Bunny sake we hope that logic holds.
As interesting & entertaining it is to watch a dog “speak like a human”, it really makes you think about how intelligent dogs truly are. Have we been underestimating them all along? In 2016, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled in favor of dogs’ sentience when a case was brought to their attention that involved pet abuse. Juno the hound dog was seized from his owner when someone noticed he looked starved.
When authorities questioned the owner why her dog looked emaciated she replied she usually bought small amounts of food but had run out. The owner then expressed a vague intention of buying some soon. That response did cut it so Juno was taken on the grounds of suspected neglect.
After testing Juno’s blood, it was ruled nothing was wrong with Juno except for being extremely malnourished. When the owner tried to declare that drawing blood from Juno could be considered an illegal search with no warrant, the court didn’t rule in her favor.
Instead the court explained that although dogs could be considered personal property “sentient beings capable of experiencing pain, stress and fear”. As such the situation wasn’t as simple as having the inside of a house or backpack searched. It was more akin to having a child examined because of suspected abuse.
So there you have it. Dogs are sentient, but are they self-aware? Do they understand they are being with separate motives, desires, and feelings? The traditional test for figuring out whether a creature is self aware is to see if they recognize themselves in the mirror.
Magpies, apes, and dolphins pass the mirror test. Dogs, on the other hand, do not. You might have even noticed a dog barking at its own reflection because it thinks it’s a different dog. It’s clear dogs don’t fully understand who they are. Does this fact convince you Bunny isn’t self aware either, or does it only make you think Bunny’s some kind of evolved super dog?
