‘Covfefe’ Made The Internet Turn On WeRateDogs, One Of The Last Bastions Of Internet Wholesomeness

Drama has manifested itself after a wild night of meme-making thanks to Donald Trump’s now-infamous “covfefe” tweet, and it’s swirling around the unlikeliest place: @Dog_Rates. One of the last bastions of pure wholesomeness on the internet today, the Twitter account that rates dogs (well) came under fire from both the left and the right for putting proceeds of a covfefe hat to Planned Parenthood, then apologizing for it when some of his followers objected. How did we get here? Let’s take a look.

The heckin’ funny guy behind @Dog_Rates, Matt Nelson, has maintained a store full of merchandise because having an ultra-popular Twitter account doesn’t really pay the bills. It’s full of hats and shirts featuring the many catchphrases he’s popularized over the last few years rating doggos. Stuff like this:

So when Donald Trump’s mysterious “covfefe” tweet took the internet by storm for a few hours, Nelson did what anyone with an online shop would do — capitalize on the fervor with a joke, then monetize it before everyone forgets it even happened.

First, the joke:

Then the merch:

Banal enough, right? No. Half of all profits from the merch would go to Planned Parenthood, which has had its funding nearly gutted by the Trump administration. This, naturally, left many people who want to support good dogs, but not Planned Parenthood, upset. As the Daily Dot points out, this announcement turned most lovers of dogs being rated into disappointed lovers of dogs being rated. They don’t want “politics” (IE: preventative care) in their viral joke merchandise based on the President’s typo, it seems. Nor can they just not buy the hat?

https://twitter.com/graywolf/status/869778178008600576

https://twitter.com/LetsBanEvrythng/status/869942284199919616

There was even the old, debunked, fake “undercover” Planned Parenthood video that came up, like clockwork. (Obligatory reminder that federal money does not fund abortions.)

https://twitter.com/usaforyoubruv/status/870015617138425856

The pushback was so real, it led to Nelson apologizing to all the doggo dads and moms that he may have offended by his charitable act. Dogs are bi-partisan, after all.

https://twitter.com/dog_rates/status/869978957906620416

And since the Internet can’t be the Internet without going Full Internet, the apology led to Nelson getting lambasted by the left, who were upset that he apologized to his right-wing followers, so they came at him with some serious logical fallacies.

https://twitter.com/cat_beltane/status/870003383658201088

https://twitter.com/clockworkrobots/status/869979869400096769

https://twitter.com/jelenawoehr/status/869990188407062528

Of course, not to be outdone, the apology was also lambasted by the right, who are experts in the ways of capitalism and mind reading, so they immediately assumed the apology came from Nelson trying to save his income, whatever that may be:

https://twitter.com/KenJoseph66/status/870057994913890305

Of course, it didn’t end there. It seems like @Dog_Rates is an unwitting martyr for all viral social media accounts that are attacked for wanting to personally help a charity of their choice.

https://twitter.com/andreagrimes/status/870016050619744256

https://twitter.com/andreagrimes/status/870019952916353024

It’s Twitter, so the argument rages on, and probably will rage on until the servers melt due to global warming. But that’s an argument for another day. Until then, we can all agree on this:

https://twitter.com/Smasha1337/status/869989072562929665

(Via Daily Dot)