On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog#Implications

Peter Steiner, a cartoonist and contributor to The New Yorker since 1979,{{Cite web |date=January 2011 |title=Brown's Guide to Georgia |url=http://www.brownsguides.com/covers/january-2011/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140312225227/http://www.brownsguides.com/covers/january-2011/ |archive-date=2014-03-12 |website=brownsguides.com}} has said that although he did have an online account in 1993, he had felt no particular interest in the Internet then. He drew the cartoon only in the manner of a "make-up-a-caption" item, to which he recalled attaching no "profound" meaning, seeing that it had received little attention initially. He later stated that he felt as if he had created the "smiley face" when his cartoon took on a life of its own, and he "can't quite fathom that it's that widely known and recognized".

On October 6, 2023, the original artwork was sold at a Heritage Auctions sale of illustration art for $175,000.

Once the exclusive domain of government engineers and academics, the Internet was by then becoming a subject of discussion in such general interest magazines as The New Yorker. Lotus Software founder and early Internet activist Mitch Kapor commented in a Time magazine article in 1993 that "the true sign that popular interest has reached critical mass came this summer when The New Yorker printed a cartoon showing two computer-savvy canines".{{Cite magazine |last=Elmer-DeWitt |first=Philip |last2=Jackson |first2=David S. |last3=King |first3=Wendy |name-list-style=amp |date=December 6, 1993 |title=First Nation in Cyberspace |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979768-2,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205184348/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979768-2,00.html |archive-date=February 5, 2009 |access-date=March 21, 2009 |magazine=Time}}

According to Bob Mankoff, then The New Yorker{{'s}} cartoon editor, "The cartoon resonated with our wariness about the facile façade that could be thrown up by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of html."{{Cite news |last=Cavna |first=Michael |date=July 31, 2013 |title='Nobody Knows You're a Dog': As iconic Internet cartoon turns 20, creator Peter Steiner knows the joke rings as relevant as ever |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/nobody-knows-youre-a-dog-as-iconic-internet-cartoon-turns-20-creator-peter-steiner-knows-the-joke-rings-as-relevant-as-ever/2013/07/31/73372600-f98d-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_blog.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160830172733/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/nobody-knows-youre-a-dog-as-iconic-internet-cartoon-turns-20-creator-peter-steiner-knows-the-joke-rings-as-relevant-as-ever/2013/07/31/73372600-f98d-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_blog.html |archive-date=30 August 2016 |access-date=6 January 2015 |work=Washington Post}}

The cartoon symbolizes the liberation of one's Internet presence from popular prejudices. Sociologist Sherry Turkle elaborates: "You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want. You don't have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much. They don't look at your body and make assumptions. They don't hear your accent and make assumptions. All they see are your words."{{Cite book |last=Hanna |first=B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VC8WDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 |title=Learning Language and Culture Via Public Internet Discussion Forums |last2=Nooy |first2=Juliana De |date=2009 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9780230235823 |language=en |access-date=4 June 2017}} This was a view that Steiner says he shares.

The cartoon conveys an understanding of Internet privacy that implies the ability to send and receive messages—or to create and maintain a website—behind a mask of anonymity. Lawrence Lessig suggests that "no one knows" because Internet protocols require no user to confirm their own identity. Although a local access point in, for example, a university may require identity confirmation, it holds such information privately, without embedding it in external Internet transactions.{{Cite book |last=Lessig |first=Lawrence |author-link=Lawrence Lessig |title=Code: Version 2.0 |publisher=Basic Books |year=2006 |isbn=0-465-03914-6 |location=New York |page=35}}

A study by Morahan-Martin and Schumacher (2000) on compulsive or troublesome Internet use discusses this phenomenon, suggesting the ability to represent one's self behind the mask of a computer screen may be part of the compulsion to go online.{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Maxwell |title=Child Pornography: An Internet Crime |last2=Quayle |first2=Ethel |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2003 |isbn=1-58391-244-4 |location=New York |page=97}} The phrase may be taken "to mean that cyberspace will be liberatory because gender, race, age, looks, or even 'dogness' are potentially absent or alternatively fabricated or exaggerated with unchecked creative license for a multitude of purposes both legal and illegal", an understanding that echoed statements made in 1996 by John Gilmore, a key figure in the history of Usenet.{{Cite book |last=Jordan |first=Tim |url=https://archive.org/details/cyberpowerintrod00jord |title=Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet |publisher=Routledge |year=1999 |isbn=0-415-17078-8 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/cyberpowerintrod00jord/page/n76 66] |chapter=The Virtual Individual |url-access=limited |authorlink=Tim Jordan (sociologist)}} The phrase also indicates the ease of computer cross-dressing: representing oneself as of a different gender; age; race; social, cultural, or economic class, etc. In a similar sense, "the freedom which the dog chooses to avail itself of, is the freedom to 'pass' as part of a privileged group; i.e., human computer users with access to the Internet".{{Cite book |last=Trend |first=David |url=https://archive.org/details/readingdigitalcu0000unse/page/226 |title=Reading Digital Culture |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |year=2001 |isbn=0-631-22302-9 |location=Malden, Massachusetts |pages=[https://archive.org/details/readingdigitalcu0000unse/page/226 226–7]}}{{Cite magazine |last=Singel |first=Ryan |date=September 6, 2007 |title=Fraudster Who Impersonated a Lawyer to Steal Domain Names Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud |url=http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/09/fraudster-who-i.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021053700/http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/09/fraudster-who-i.html |archive-date=October 21, 2008 |access-date=October 2, 2007 |magazine=Wired}}

File:MPOTY 2014 Social media opens doors for meeting new people.jpg photo of a dog at a computer]]

• The cartoon inspired the play Nobody Knows I'm a Dog by Alan David Perkins. The play revolves around six individuals, unable to communicate effectively with people in their lives, who nonetheless find the courage to socialize anonymously on the Internet.
• Cyberdog, an Internet suite by Apple Inc., was named after this cartoon.{{Cite journal |last=Ticktin |first=Neil |date=February 1996 |title=Save Cyberdog! |url=http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.12/12.02/Feb96PublishersPage/index.html |url-status=live |journal=MacTech |volume=12 |issue=2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419002001/http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.12/12.02/Feb96PublishersPage/index.html |archive-date=April 19, 2012 |access-date=September 3, 2011}}
• A cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez published in The New Yorker on February 23, 2015, features a similar pair of dogs watching their owner sitting at a computer, with one asking the other, "Remember when, on the Internet, nobody knew who you were?"{{Cite magazine |last=Vidani |first=Peter |date=February 23, 2015 |title=The New Yorker - A cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez, from this week's... |url=http://newyorker.tumblr.com/post/111446912131/a-cartoon-by-kaamran-hafeez-from-this-weeks |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920221919/http://newyorker.tumblr.com/post/111446912131/a-cartoon-by-kaamran-hafeez-from-this-weeks |archive-date=September 20, 2016 |access-date=July 29, 2016 |magazine=The New Yorker |via=tumblr.com}}
• It has become a frequently used refrain in discussions about the Internet{{Cite book |last=Friedman |first=Lester D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fk93cx9ZXGMC&pg=PA391 |title=Cultural Sutures: Medicine and Media |date=2004 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=0822332949 |location=Durham, N.C |language=en |access-date=4 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190629181237/https://books.google.com/books?id=Fk93cx9ZXGMC&pg=PA391 |archive-date=29 June 2019 |url-status=live}} and as such has become an Internet meme, perhaps iconic to Internet culture.{{Cite book |last=Castro-Leon |first=Enrique |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qufIDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 |title=Cloud as a Service: Understanding the Service Innovation Ecosystem |last2=Harmon |first2=Robert |date=December 22, 2016 |publisher=Apress |isbn=9781484201039 |language=en |access-date=4 June 2017}}

• Animal–computer interaction
• Dog with a Blog

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Christopher R. |title=Education in Cyberspace |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=0-415-32882-9 |editor-last=Land |editor-first=Ray |location=New York |at=[https://archive.org/details/educationincyber0000unse/page/105 105 pages] |chapter=Nobody knows you're a dog |editor-last2=Bayne |editor-first2=Siân |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/educationincyber0000unse/page/105 |name-list-style=amp}}
• {{Cite book |last=Nielsen |first=Jakob |url=https://archive.org/details/multimediahypert00niel/page/172 |title=Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet and Beyond |publisher=AP Professional |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-12-518408-3 |location=San Diego |at=[https://archive.org/details/multimediahypert00niel/page/172 172 pages]}}
• {{Cite book |last=Nakamura |first=Lisa |title=Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=0-415-93837-6 |location=New York |at=35 pages}}
• {{Cite book |last=The New Yorker Magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zNdxD3SSyhIC&q=On+the+Internet%2C+nobody+knows+you%27re+a+dog |title=The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs |last2=Malcolm Gladwell |date=October 30, 2012 |publisher=Random House Publishing |isbn=9780679644767 |display-authors=etal}}
• {{Cite book |last=Schneider |first=Edgar |url=https://archive.org/details/livinggoodlifewi0000schn/page/44 |title=Living the Good Life With Autism |publisher=Jessica Kingsley Publishers |year=2003 |isbn=1-84310-712-0 |location=London |at=[https://archive.org/details/livinggoodlifewi0000schn/page/44 44 pages]}}
• {{Cite book |last=Turkle |first=Sherry |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeonscreen00sher |title=Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1997 |isbn=0-68483-348-4 |location=New York |at=[https://archive.org/details/lifeonscreen00sher/page/n353 352] pages |url-access=limited}}

{{refend}}

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