We give this dog a 0/10.
The Twitter account WeRateDogs has become incredibly popular, amassing almost seven million followers with its good-natured ranking of cute canines. An affiliated account, Thoughts of Dog, has over one million followers.
While its colorful language and nonsense ratings (13/10) have annoyed some users, overall WeRateDogs has just been a haven for cute animals.
Until this week, that is.
Twitter user Danny Capone submitted his dog Kanan to WeRateDogs yesterday. The account did end up sharing the photo, but it used the whitewashed name “George” instead.
https://twitter.com/CaponeKnows/status/1010211293624700928
Eagle-eyed Twitter user Mary Wagner noticed the discrepancy and reached out to WeRateDogs.
What's George's REAL name? @kerrymflynn @amysno @kristynabfrantz
— Mary Wagner (@marybwagner) June 25, 2018
The dog account then blocked Wagner almost immediately.
It’s a good day to get blocked by @dog_rates for calling out when they changed a dog’s Arabic-origin name to something extremely white. pic.twitter.com/vefrTZQ2hQ
— Mary Wagner (@marybwagner) June 25, 2018
Matt Nelson, who runs the WeRateDogs Twitter account, said that he checked with Capone before changing the dog’s name—and a later tweet from Capone seemingly confirmed this.
Kanan did not mindhttps://t.co/Yvc69YY3ZR
— Danny Capone (@CaponeKnows) June 26, 2018
Nelson was still extremely defensive about the whole situation, however. He begrudgingly apologized, but claimed that he frequently changes dog names—for example, from Pablo to Pipsy.
I WON’T CHANGE ANY MORE OF THE DOG NAMES HOLY FUCK
— matt (@dogfather) June 25, 2018
I don’t even know how to apologize for this one. I always enjoyed changing names. It helped me figure out what people liked. As long as the owner approved, I thought it was fine. “White-washing” the names was obviously not my intention and it will never happen again
— matt (@dogfather) June 25, 2018
The idea of using a more palatable dog name just to get more likes rubbed plenty of people the wrong way, however.
Dog Rates changing the dogs’ names so the posts will get better metrics is the Lance Armstrong doping scandal of our time
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) June 25, 2018
“It might not be Dog Rates/Matt’s fault that racism is so ingrained in our society that white names perform better, but it is everyone’s responsibility to not perpetuate it.,” Wagner told Observer. “I really enjoy Dog Rates, but I think it’s always worth it to point out these subtle injustices in this day and age, no matter how small they may be.
This isn’t the first time Nelson’s cute dogs have led to controversy. The 21-year-old dropped out of college to monetize WeRateDogs, but not all of his efforts have been successful.
Last year, Nelson created WeRateDogs hats and said half the profits would be donated to Planned Parenthood. The anti-abortion crowd then claimed he was politicizing cute puppies.
But whether the issue is whitewashing or abortion, Nelson is apparently done talking about it.
When Observer reached out to him for comment, he responded with one sentence: “Flint still doesn’t have clean
Looks like Michelle Wolf runs WeRateDogs now.
