Peter Steiner was probably just trying to meet a deadline. It was July 1993, and the New Yorker cartoonist sat down to draw two dogs sitting at a computer. One is perched on a chair, paws on the keyboard, looking down at his canine companion with a smirk. "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog," he tells him. It’s a simple gag. At the time, the World Wide Web was barely a toddler, mostly populated by academics, government employees, and a few early-adopter nerds using Gopher or Usenet.
Steiner didn't expect to become a prophet. He actually didn't even care that much about the internet back then. But that single panel became the most reproduced cartoon in the magazine's history, earning him over $100,000 in royalties. It captured something fundamental about the human psyche and our relationship with screens that remains bone-chillingly relevant today, even if the "dogs" are now AI bots or sophisticated state actors.
The Birth of Digital Fluidity
The early 90s internet was a Wild West of anonymity. You didn't have a Facebook profile tied to your real-world identity. You had a handle. You had an avatar. You had a text-based presence in a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) or an IRC channel. In that environment, the "dog" wasn't just a metaphor for a literal animal; it was a metaphor for anyone who felt marginalized, different, or simply wanted to shed the skin of their physical reality.
If you were a teenager in a small town struggling with your identity, you could go online and find a community that saw you for who you felt you were, not who your neighbors thought you were. If you were a world-class scientist who happened to be twelve years old, you could contribute to discussions without being dismissed because of your age. The internet promised a meritocracy of ideas. It was the great equalizer. This was the "cyber-utopian" era. People like John Perry Barlow, who wrote the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, truly believed that the digital realm would be a place where the prejudices of the physical world—race, gender, wealth, and yes, species—would simply evaporate.
But there’s a darker side to the dog. If nobody knows you’re a dog, they also don't know if you're a scammer. They don't know if you're a predator. They don't know if the person giving you medical advice is actually a doctor or just someone with a high-speed connection and a lot of free time. The anonymity that offered liberation also offered a cloak for the worst human impulses.
When the Dogs Started Getting Tracked
We don't live in 1993 anymore. Nowadays, it feels like everyone knows you're a dog, what brand of kibble you buy, and exactly which fire hydrant you visited at 2:15 PM yesterday. The transition from the anonymous web to the "identity web" was swift and driven largely by advertising.
🔗 Read more: Why Did Google Call My S25 Ultra an S22? The Real Reason Your New Phone Looks Old Online
Data is the new oil, as the saying goes. Companies like Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) built empires on the fact that they do know who you are. They know your real name, your birthday, your political leanings, and your purchase history. The cartoon has inverted. We spent the first decade of the internet trying to be someone else, and we’ve spent the last decade being tracked so we can be sold back to ourselves.
Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT and author of Life on the Screen, spent years studying how these digital identities affect us. In her early work, she was optimistic about the "protean self"—the idea that we could play with different identities to understand ourselves better. By the time she wrote Alone Together, that optimism had cooled. We aren't playing with identities anymore; we are managing "brands." The dog in the cartoon isn't just chatting; he's building a following.
The Rise of the "Bot-Dog"
If we look at the current landscape, the "dog" has evolved. It’s no longer a human pretending to be something else. It’s often not a human at all. Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI have taken Steiner’s joke to a terrifying new level.
- Dead Internet Theory: There is a growing conspiracy theory—which, honestly, feels less like a conspiracy every day—that most of the "people" you interact with on social media are actually bots.
- Deepfakes: It’s not just text anymore. We have video and audio that can mimic anyone.
- Automated Influence: Modern "dogs" are programmed to sway elections, pump stocks, or incite outrage.
The core problem remains the same: the lack of a "trust layer" in the protocol of the internet itself. When TCP/IP was designed, the architects weren't thinking about identity verification. They were thinking about how to move packets of data from Point A to Point B if a nuclear bomb went off. Identity was an afterthought.
Why the Cartoon Still Resonates in 2026
You might think that in an era of facial recognition and "Real Name" policies, the cartoon would be a relic. It isn’t. In fact, we are seeing a massive "dog" resurgence. Look at the rise of "Vtubers"—streamers who use anime avatars instead of their real faces. Look at the pseudonymous world of crypto and Web3, where people go by names like "BoredApe99" and manage millions of dollars in assets without ever revealing their legal names.
💡 You might also like: Brain Machine Interface: What Most People Get Wrong About Merging With Computers
We crave the anonymity that the dog enjoyed. We are exhausted by the "surveillance capitalism" model. This has led to a fragmented internet. We have the "Clear Web," where you are tracked and indexed, and the "Dark Web" or "Small Web," where the dogs still roam free.
The nuance here is that anonymity isn't a binary. It’s a spectrum.
- Pseudonymity: You have a persistent identity (like a Reddit username), but it’s not linked to your legal name.
- Full Anonymity: Every interaction is a clean slate (like 4chan).
- Verified Identity: Your digital self is cryptographically linked to your physical self (like a digital ID or a blue checkmark).
Most of us oscillate between these states every day. We use our real names on LinkedIn, a handle on X (Twitter), and a completely different persona in a gaming discord. We are all dogs in some rooms and humans in others.
The Practical Reality of Online Identity
So, what does this mean for you? If you're navigating the internet today, you have to assume that everyone is a dog until proven otherwise. This isn't just about being cynical; it's about digital literacy.
The "Nobody knows you're a dog" era taught us that the internet is a performative space. Everything you see is a choice. When someone posts a "candid" photo on Instagram, it's a choice. When a CEO tweets a "spontaneous" thought, it's likely vetted by a PR team. The dog is always at the keyboard, deciding which version of himself to show you.
📖 Related: Spectrum Jacksonville North Carolina: What You’re Actually Getting
We are also seeing a shift in how we verify truth. Since we can no longer trust that a "person" on the screen is real, we are moving toward "Proof of Personhood." Technologies like Worldcoin (using iris scans) or decentralized identity protocols are trying to solve the very problem Steiner joked about thirty years ago. They want to make sure that on the internet, everyone knows you aren't a dog. But do we really want that? If we lose the ability to be the "dog," we lose the ability to experiment, to fail safely, and to speak truth to power without fear of retribution. The tension between safety (knowing who someone is) and freedom (being whoever you want) is the central conflict of our digital age.
How to Navigate a World of "Dogs"
- Verify, Don't Trust: If you're dealing with sensitive information or money, use multi-channel verification. Don't trust an email; call the person. Don't trust a DM; look for a cryptographic signature.
- Embrace Pseudonymity for Privacy: You don't need to use your real name for every newsletter signup or forum. Using "burner" identities is a legitimate way to protect your data footprint.
- Recognize the "Bot" Pattern: AI-generated content often has a specific cadence—it's too perfect, too balanced, or lacks specific, gritty real-world anecdotes. If it feels like a "dog" programmed to sound like a human, it probably is.
- Protect Your "Humanity": In an automated world, your unique, messy, non-linear human experiences are your greatest asset. Share the things that a bot (or a dog) couldn't possibly know.
Moving Forward in the Kennel
Steiner’s cartoon wasn't just a joke about computers; it was a commentary on the masks we wear. Long before the internet, humans were "dogs" in different social circles. We’ve always had a public self and a private self. The internet just gave us a megaphone and a costume shop that never closes.
The next stage of the internet won't be about hiding the dog; it will be about proving the human. We are entering an era of "Deep Trust" where the most valuable currency isn't data, but the verifiable proof that there is a soul on the other side of the connection.
Next Steps for Your Digital Identity:
- Audit your "Dog" footprints: Go to your Google My Activity page and see exactly how much "the internet" knows about you. It’s usually more than you think.
- Use a Password Manager and MFA: If you're going to have multiple identities, you need to secure the "keys" to those personas.
- Practice Digital Skepticism: Before sharing a viral story or an emotional post, ask yourself: "Is this a dog trying to get a treat?" Look for the source, check the date, and see if the account was created yesterday.
- Support Original Content: The best way to combat a web full of anonymous bots is to support real creators, journalists, and artists who stand behind their work with their real reputations.
The dogs aren't going away. They’re just getting smarter. Your job is to make sure you know which ones to play with and which ones to keep behind the fence.