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 (which means I’m better and more worldly than you).
It started innocently, with reposts from Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s X account, but quickly escalated until my coworkers started sending me tweets about making a brisket out of the poor thing. Exactly how Moo Deng — which translates to “bouncy pork” in Thai — has gone from adorable to edible is beyond my pay grade, but maybe it has something to do with the phenomenon of “cuteness aggression,” by which my desire to eat the hippo comes out of love and not malice (or hunger). That being said, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo is now concerned about Moo Deng’s safety, restricting visiting hours to weekends. So maybe calls to eat Moo Deng are actually malicious.
The point here is that I sent this to my significant other out of love, and now Moo Deng has cycled through the spiraling stages of internet fame. This pattern rings true of Brat summer, which began with green memes circulating among Charli XCX’s queer fan base and ended with NATO posting “peace” in Brat green and Kamala Harris’s campaign absorbing the color scheme as its own. Moo Deng, once a rather insignificant hippo, has already become the face of Pop-Tarts and Sephora Thailand, as well as appearing in a network of influencer tutorials. Social media marketing appears to have its finger on the cultural pulse more than ever before, expediting the timeline between cool and corporate.
Here’s my report on Moo Deng’s evolution from sleepy and cute (“eepy,” if you will) to shamelessly raucous to the perfect main course for your next neighborhood cookout.
September 3: This is the first Moo Deng meme I sent, which set me up, in terms of algorithm, for many wasted hours of my early 20s. 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 at a mall as a child is mad. This post is perhaps the best encapsulation of the peak Moo Deng Cute Era, during which beauty influencers inducted the hippo into the digital celebrity canon.
Also September 11: While cuteness was the main appeal of Moo Deng at this stage in the game, her proclivity for screeching while thwarting her zookeepers’ efforts to control her movement resonated with another zeitgeisty phenomenon: female rage.
September 17: I would also classify this Moo Deng cake tutorial as part of the Moo Deng Cute Era. However, here social media users begin to note comparisons between the hippo and edible items. Perhaps this post marks the turning point of Moo Deng’s popularity as a beauty icon to a potential food item.
September 18: This X (formerly Twitter) user’s mother thought Moo Deng looked like the sugary, spherical South Indian dessert ragi mudde, an easy mistake to make. Its consequences, though, have only made her comparisons to delicious treats harder to shake:
September 18: X user @Bigcontentguy releases the most extreme call to grill Moo Deng that I’ve seen anywhere. His threat discusses side dishes, precisely “some steamed rice, maybe some okra and glazed carrots.” Welcome to edgelord hell.
September 19: Flash tattoos of Moo Deng appear and do quite well on Instagram. One image in particular catches my eye: Moo Deng chomping down on a severed human leg. To me, this design and its popularity signal shifting cultural attitudes toward Moo Deng, perhaps to justify a collective cuteness aggression-induced hunger:
September 19: This meme walks the thin line between a celebration of the aforementioned female rage — innocent enough, and even empowering — and a vilification of the chunky loaf. She’s rageful, she’s cute, she’s yummy?
September 19: Feminism adopts Moo Deng.
September 20: Makeup artist Mei Pang continues a reclamation of the hungry hippo’s iconic look. As one commenter puts it, “Moisturized and unbothered, 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…
