I sent my first Moo Deng meme via Instagram on September 3 at 10:15 PM, before the Thai baby pygmy hippopotamus took the world by storm (meaning I am better and more worldly than you).
It started innocently, with reposts from Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s X accountbut quickly escalated until my coworkers started sending me tweets about making a brisket out of the poor thing. How exactly Moo Deng – which translates to ‘bouncy pork’ in Thai – went from cute to edible is beyond my pay grade, but perhaps it has something to do with the phenomenon’cuteness aggression”, which makes my desire to eat the hippopotamus come from a place of love and not malice (or hunger). That said, the Khao Kheow is Open Zoo now concerned about Moo Deng’s safety, limiting visiting hours to weekends. So maybe calls to eat Moo Deng are actually evil.
The point here is that I sent this to my partner out of love, and now Moo Deng has gone through the spiraling stages of internet fame. This pattern is consistent with Brat Summer, which started with green memes circulating among Charli XCX’s queer fanbase and ended with NATO places ‘peace’ in Brat green and Kamala Harris’ campaign that absorbed the color scheme as its own. Once a rather insignificant hippo, Moo Deng has already become the face of Pop-Tarts and Sephora Thailand, as well as appearing in a network of influencer tutorials. Social media marketing seems to have its finger on the cultural pulse more than ever, accelerating the timeline between cool and business.
Here’s my report on Moo Deng’s evolution from sleepy and cute (“eepy,” if you will) to shamelessly raw to the perfect main dish for your next neighborhood cookout.
September 3: This is the first Moo Deng meme I’ve sent, which, in algorithm terms, has made me experience many wasted hours in my early twenties. But as you can see, I started with pure intentions.
September 11: Moo Deng gets a Sephora ad, and the part of me that wishes I was scouted in a mall as a kid is angry. This post is perhaps the best summary of the culmination of Moo Deng Cute Era, in which beauty influencers introduced the hippo to the digital canon of celebrity.
Also September 11th: While cuteness was Moo Deng’s main appeal at this stage of the game, her tendency to screech while thwarting her zookeepers’ attempts to control her movements resonated with another zeitgeist phenomenon: feminine rage.
September 17: I would also classify this Moo Deng cake tutorial as part of the Moo Deng Cute Era. However, this is where social media users begin to notice comparisons between the hippopotamus and edible items. Perhaps this post marks the turning point in Moo Deng’s popularity as a beauty icon for a potential food product.
September 18: The mother of this However, its consequences have only made her comparisons to delicious treats even more difficult:
September 18:X user @Bigcontentguy gives the most extreme call for grilling Moo Deng I’ve ever seen. His threat is about side dishes, precisely “some steamed rice, maybe some okra and candied carrots.” Welcome to Edgelord hell.
September 19: Moo Deng’s flash tattoos are appearing and doing quite well on Instagram. One image in particular catches my attention: Moo Deng chewing on a severed human leg. To me, this design and its popularity indicate a changing cultural attitude towards Moo Deng, perhaps to justify a collective cuteness-aggression induced hunger:
September 19: This meme walks the fine line between a celebration of the aforementioned female rage – innocent enough, and even empowering – and a vilification of the fat loaf. She’s furious, she’s cute, she’s hot?
September 19: Feminism adopts Moo Deng.
September 20: Makeup artist Mei Pang continues to reclaim the iconic look of the hungry hippo. As one commenter puts it: “Moisturized and undisturbed, Moo Deng is THE ultimate beauty queen.”
September 22: A photoshopped Moo Deng swallows an entire monkey, completing Moo Deng’s transformation from a lovably moody hippo into a… monster?
And one more for the road…
