Moo Deng. It’s a reputation thousands and thousands world wide have come to know. She’s essentially the most obsessed-over, least controversial superstar. Her dewy pores and skin, her enviable way of life of frolicking and feasting, her eminently meme-able face have all made her an icon of the web. She’s additionally … a hippopotamus.
Cute creatures going viral is nothing new. Seven years in the past, the Cincinnati Zoo wished TIME to call Fiona the hippo Individual—er, Animal?—of the Yr.
However 2024 appears to be on a distinct degree of feral fascination.
The plump pygmy hippo from Thailand—who was born in July and whose title interprets roughly to “bouncy pork”—rose to fame maybe when she was wanted most. “Observing animals, whether or not on-line or in particular person, might be therapeutic in some ways,” College of Washington psychology professor emeritus David Barash tells TIME. They will present a comforting distraction, he says, “when so many individuals are depressed by the state of the world.”
And distract Moo Deng did.
What began as merely a brand new topic of pictures and movies posted on Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s social media platforms rapidly snowballed into the world’s newest It woman. Social media customers obsessed over each new documentation of her teething and tumbling and childish antics, and the followers of the zoo’s TikTok, Fb, X, and Instagram accounts skyrocketed.
Moo Deng impressed fan artwork, merchandise, even make-up traits. Foot site visitors to the zoo hit document highs, prompting new measures to guard Moo Deng’s security and limitations on visiting hours. (A 24/7 livestream was arrange for her most devoted followers to get round the clock entry.)
Jin Lee, a media sociologist at Curtin College in Australia, thinks Moo Deng initially resonated so broadly as a result of her relationship together with her caretaker appeared real somewhat than staged or manufactured for clicks. “He spent a variety of time together with her, after which he simply began to submit issues about her,” says Lee, and other people crave such authenticity.
Moo Deng’s attain has since prolonged far and large: She made her approach into photoshops of film scenes, turned the U.S. Labor Division’s poster woman for staying hydrated, and in September was even parodied on Saturday Night time Dwell. In November, GMM, one among Thailand’s largest music corporations, produced an upbeat theme music for Moo Deng in 4 totally different languages—Thai, Chinese language, Japanese, and English—which have collectively racked up tons of of 1000’s of streams on YouTube.
Tony Sampson, a digital-media researcher on the College of Essex, tells TIME he defines digital virality as “affective contagion.” In different phrases, posts that make you really feel one thing are inclined to unfold higher than purely informational posts. “Damaging feelings like anger and frustration unfold properly too,” he provides. “However possibly folks want to flee that generally.”
“I feel this 12 months may be barely totally different on condition that there’s been a variety of miserable information,” Sampson says. “Actually, on my networks, the place there’s been an comprehensible enhance in downbeat posts associated to the miserable political state of affairs and the wars, my hottest submit was of a small fowl peeping via my window.”
It’s no surprise, then, that Moo Deng was not alone this 12 months in attracting the world’s consideration. A cohort of cute animals have joined her within the on-line highlight—from Pesto the very massive penguin to Nibi the “diva” beaver to Biscuits the seal, Hua Hua the large panda, and even Haggis, a fellow child pygmy hippo who was born in Scotland in October. The listing goes on, however one factor these social media sensations seem to have in frequent is that individuals appear to love to ascribe humanlike traits and feelings to them.
Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz coined the idea of Kindchenschema, or child schema, to explain people’ affinity to facial and bodily options that make a creature seem cute—huge eyes, protruding cheeks, an ungainly gait—and that set off a want to take care of and shield them. The preferred Moo Deng posts typically focus on likening her to a toddler, from discovering her footing to calling for her mother to throwing tantrums. One submit even made out that she carried a leaf round on her snout for emotional assist.
Anthropomorphism can generally misinterpret what animals are literally going via, Barash warns. However the truth that a lot of Moo Deng’s attraction appears to stem from her perceived relatability isn’t essentially a nasty factor, he suggests—and it isn’t at all times off base. “Fortuitously,” he says, “animal behaviorists are more and more comfy recognizing the plain: that many animals share a variety of psychological states with human beings.”
Perhaps we may all do with our personal emotional-support leaf. Or possibly Moo Deng is already simply that.