Dorime Rat, also known as Rato Dorime, pairs a taxidermied mouse dressed as the pope with the chant from Era's 1996 song "Ameno" for a bait-and-switch gag. Brazilian users stitched the audio and image together in late 2019, and within three months the Pope Rat had its own fan art, Instagram account, and a browser platformer.
Origin
The photo predates the meme by nearly a decade. Jeanie M's taxidermied Pope Mouse was uploaded to the Tumblr blog Crappy Taxidermy on August 1, 2010, where it was reblogged for years before the Dorime treatment arrived[2]. The mice had reached Jeanie through a business associate who donated them after they went unused as snake food[3].
The meme itself emerged from Brazilian social media in late 2019, where users were already remixing Era's "Ameno" and started pairing the Pope Mouse photo with the chant.
- Creator: Unknown
- Date: 2019
Overview
The gag plays like a Portuguese-language cousin of Rickrolling. Scroll into a reply chain or click an innocuous link and up comes the pope-mouse still with Era's booming pseudo-Latin chorus, usually captioned "You have been Dorimed"[3]. The source image is from taxidermy artist Jeanie M, whose "mouse-a-dermy" series produced the vestment-wearing Pope Mouse that got welded to the song[2].
Posts tend to keep the image untouched and let the audio or caption do the setup work. Pixel art, 8-bit covers, and animated loops have all pulled from the same single frame rather than drawing new poses[1].
How to Use
Common convention is to drop the Pope Mouse image at the end of an unrelated post, caption some variant of "Dorime" or "You have been Dorimed," and let the Era chorus do the rest[3]. Edits usually loop the still to the song for a few seconds before cutting out; pixel and animated versions tend to recreate the frame rather than replace it[5].
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Dorime Rat?
Dorime Rat, also called Rato Dorime, is a bait-and-switch image meme that pairs a taxidermied mouse dressed as the pope with the booming chant from Era's 1996 song "Ameno"[3].
Where did Dorime Rat come from?
What does Dorime Rat mean?
"Dorime" is a mondegreen of a line from Era's "Ameno"; captions like "You have been Dorimed" turn the Pope Mouse image into a Rickroll-style gag[3].
How do you use Dorime Rat?
Typical usage drops the Pope Mouse image at the end of an unrelated post with a "Dorime" caption, often with the Era track playing underneath, as seen in Davinisk's viral YouTube video[5].
Is Dorime Rat still popular?
It peaked in early 2020 after YouTuber Davinisk's December 2019 upload drew nearly 2 million views[5] and Brazilian devs built a browser platformer around it in February 2020[1].
