Culture

Bunny, The Talking TikTok Dog, Has Officially Reached Conscious Existentialism

Never have I related to a dog more.

by Rashna Farrukh  18 November 2020

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Bunny’s (TikTok’s favourite talking dog) existential crisis has crossed over into the conscious realm, and we’ve officially reached a new era of terrifying.

If you’re not familiar, Bunny is a one-year-old sheepadoodle on TikTok, who communicates with her owner using a custom Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) soundboard. The board has over 70 pre-recorded words and phrases split into six categories: who, doing, what, where, social, and descriptors.

As more videos of Bunny have been uploaded to @what_about_bunny, the dog’s progress over the passing months is obvious. In one video Bunny hit the “park” button to request that Alexis take her out to the park, in another, Bunny hits the “poop” button to go poop outside. BUT GET THIS, a few hours later, Bunny hits “went” and “poop” in a terrifying move that may show that the dog not only has some understanding of tense, time and her actions, but also can now communicate them with a human.

As Bunny has progressed, her 5 million TikTok followers started to jokingly predict Bunny could be having an existential crisis after learning of her powers.

And well, it actually happened.

Using the board, Bunny pressed “who” and “this”, WALKED OVER TO THE MIRROR, and just stared at herself to figure out what the philosophical question of the ages “who am I?” Bunny then stares out the window onto the water, which frankly, is the most 2020 existential mood, before coming back to the board to press “help”. HELP!!! Never have I related to a dog more.

Though there is a large amount of evidence that consciousness is not merely a human experience, it is next level to see a dog prove that to us by communicating to us in our own language. And it is no surprise that now Bunny recognises her place in the world, she has chosen to express confusion about who she is, a question all of us are trying but unlikely to figure out. Life is, after all, a never-ending existential crisis.

While we all dwell on that, I will wait till Bunny reaches the point where she can answer the most popular philosophical question: would you kill one person to save five? And with how fast Bunny has progressed, I’m sure she will have her answer ready in no time.