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He’s loyal. He’s kind. He’s imaginative, loving, and caring. He’s a dreamer and, at times, he can be selfish; but who can’t. He loves a nap, and loves to imagine a world in which he’s something different; something more. He’s obsessed with chocolate-chip cookies and, while he’s written plenty of novels, none of them have ever been published. He flew in World War I, but his Sopwith Camel was shot down. He doesn’t speak, although he imagines himself to. His home defies physics.
He’s an anthropomorphic beagle, and the internet is obsessed with him.
He’s Snoopy.
There is always a spike of interest in Snoopy in November, as he is one of the biggest celebrities of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But Snoopy has been the subject of a resurgence of love, brought on by social media and his Gen Z fans.
Take Kate Glavan, an influencer with 116.3K followers on TikTok. Glavan is primarily known for being an athlete — she’s a HOKA Global Athlete Ambassador and sometimes runs while high — but she’s also really into Snoopy.
“I love how dramatic Snoopy is,” she told Mashable over Instagram DM. “I also love how loving and loyal he is. Growing up in Minnesota, there was Snoopy stuff everywhere — seeing it now all over social media reminds me of my childhood and family.”
Most recently, there’s been a rush to buy a plush Snoopy in a green-and-yellow striped winter hat and a pale-blue puffy coat from CVS for about $15. It’s the puffy jacket Snoopy and everyone wants one — so much so that it’s sold out online and people are reporting difficulties finding one in stores across the country.
And this is just the most recent Snoopy craze. As the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out, the Build-A-Bear Snoopy remains sold out online, and the Red Cross Snoopy t-shirt went viral, too. It could be because Snoopy is cute, but could it also be because we kind of want to be him?
Blake Scott Ball, a history professor at Huntingdon College and the author of Charlie Brown’s America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts told The Atlantic that the Peanuts comic “was about the difficulty of existing as a regular human being in the 20th century … just how hard it is to handle the immensity of problems that faced us, and hold all that together with your daily concerns.”
Our current world is difficult, too: The wealth gap is deepening, and we’re lonelier than ever, which might force us to seek community wherever we can find it — even if it’s not part of our own reality, like Snoopy’s dream worlds.
A defining feature of Snoopy that makes him who he is, is his rich inner life. He plays make believe with such verve and wild chaos that it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that everyone also trying to avoid their own realities is obsessed with him. And there are thousands of TikToks celebrating Snoopy’s inarguable connection to his own emotional vulnerability. Maybe we could use a little more daydreaming and a little more emotion. Maybe Snoopy is a callback to our childhood fantasies and playfulness.
“Snoopy reminds me to be childlike and playful with each day,” Galvan said.
Or maybe he’s just cute. Either way, find me emulating Snoopy and his droopy little Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Because when I say I got that dog in me, I mean Snoopy.
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