Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, it's Jamie here with two quick reminders at
Speaker 2: the top. First, if you are in the Los Angeles
Speaker 2: area in November, I'm going to be workshopping my new
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Speaker 2: Kill Me, of course, and tickets are already running low.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be doing workshop shows on Friday, November
Speaker 2: first and Wednesday, November twentieth at the Lyric Hyperion, with
Speaker 2: more dates to come.
Speaker 3: But if you want to.
Speaker 2: See the show early, tickets are running low, so get them.
Speaker 2: It's really goofy, there's some body horror and I'm really
Speaker 2: in my bag, So tickets in the description. And also
Speaker 2: just a reminder that there is a sixteenth minute Reddit
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Speaker 2: Ian Johnson if you want to chat about episodes after
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Speaker 1: Now, Moo dang, moo dang, move dang, what did they
Speaker 1: do to you? Moodang?
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this episode at the time of release,
Speaker 2: you are either thrilled or completely sick of hearing about Moodang.
Speaker 1: A now three month.
Speaker 2: Old baby Pygmy Hippo at the kaal Kio Open zoo
Speaker 2: in Thailand who went viral on TikTok for being a
Speaker 2: three month old baby pygmy hippo. Moodang is the rare
Speaker 2: internet phenomenon that no one dislikes. She lives to get
Speaker 2: water from the hose from her zookeeper. She bites said
Speaker 2: zookeeper's legs when there's not enough water from the hose.
Speaker 2: She's a sassy, slick little baby who will one day
Speaker 2: grow to be around three thousand pounds, suckling from her
Speaker 2: mom as the hippo matriarch chows down eighty pounds of
Speaker 2: grass a day. She is beauty, she is rage. There's
Speaker 2: nothing controversial about Moodang. What could possibly be controversial about Moodang?
Speaker 4: At just two months old, this little baby hippo is
Speaker 4: already in Internet giants.
Speaker 5: The hottest, hottest new it girl on the planet.
Speaker 3: She's redefining beauty standards.
Speaker 5: She's got chubby, pink cheeks, a distinct potato shape.
Speaker 3: We're talking about moo Tang.
Speaker 6: So we have like a little Moodang mean group chat
Speaker 6: where we're like sharing, and we talked about getting Moodang
Speaker 6: tattoos as a joke, but now it feels serious.
Speaker 1: So the moodang mania is still spreading and sparking a
Speaker 1: small business boom.
Speaker 5: The comedian shut down criticism surrounding a now viral appearance
Speaker 5: on Weekend Update in which he channeled the pop star
Speaker 5: well dressed as viral baby hippo Moodang has a.
Speaker 7: Baby Hippo sparked the next trend in makeup.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we can't even look at a baby
Speaker 2: hippo without starting discourse. You guys, chill out, please look
Speaker 2: mooddang is fifteenth Minute is still very much underway, but
Speaker 2: the human ability to torpedo a good thing inside of
Speaker 2: six weeks remains completely undefeated. So today, in a special
Speaker 2: mini ishisode, we're going to talk about Moodang, the phenomenon
Speaker 2: of the social media zoo star.
Speaker 1: And what we can do.
Speaker 2: To make the world more safe for the tiny slick
Speaker 2: queen of the Internet.
Speaker 7: Play the music the.
Speaker 2: Welcome to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take a
Speaker 2: look at the Internet's characters of the day, see how
Speaker 2: their moment affected them and what it says about us
Speaker 2: and the Internet at large. And this week we're on
Speaker 2: a bit of a side quest, taking a look not
Speaker 2: just at current viral zoo sensation, Moo Dang the Hippo.
Speaker 2: But at the long standing phenomenon of zoo celebrities. Zoo celebrities,
Speaker 2: I don't want to coin a term because don't worry,
Speaker 2: it'll get extremely dark. And I will also be speaking
Speaker 2: with zoologist Oliver aka Doctor Wildlife to expand on what
Speaker 2: zooelebrity means on today's social media. And to be clear,
Speaker 2: may be clear, I'm not talking about viral pets here.
Speaker 2: You're grumpy cats, your doges, your noodle, the pugs. Individual
Speaker 2: ownership versus zoo ownership is a completely different discussion as
Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned, which is just to say, by
Speaker 2: all means, send me some requests on what viral pets
Speaker 2: you'd want to see discussed on the show.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: This week we're talking zoo sensations because while animals who
Speaker 2: go viral online have a lot in common regardless of
Speaker 2: where they live, this conversation is very much its own thing.
Speaker 7: So you earned it.
Speaker 2: Let's start by talking about the current queen supreme of
Speaker 2: the Internet, Miss Moodang the Hippo.
Speaker 7: Come with me if.
Speaker 2: You will to last month, it feels dramatic to say
Speaker 2: we've already been through so much with moodang discourse. But
Speaker 2: I'm kind of not joking when I say that, I
Speaker 2: really do feel like internet sensations tend to inspire an
Speaker 2: absurd amount of discourse, way more than they normally would
Speaker 2: in the year before and after an election cycle in
Speaker 2: the US because of.
Speaker 1: Our rotting brains.
Speaker 2: So let's get into it. Pigmy hippos aren't from Thailand natively.
Speaker 2: They're West African, a little smaller than your average hippo,
Speaker 2: and are very endangered, with an approximated less than three
Speaker 2: thousand that still live in the wild in their native habitat,
Speaker 2: mainly due to environmental destruction because of illegal logging and mining.
Speaker 2: There's an approximate three hundred and fifty pygmy hippos living
Speaker 2: in zoos across the world as of late twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: but as far as we know, that's about it. And
Speaker 2: Mudang immediately became the most popular pigmy hippo in the
Speaker 2: world this past summer while living at a for profit
Speaker 2: zoo in Thailand, and weirdly enough, saying you're the most
Speaker 2: famous pygmy hippo is actually saying something. A pigmy hippo
Speaker 2: in Berlin named Tony went viral earlier last summer. But
Speaker 2: Tony just did didn't have the stang power and that
Speaker 2: showbiz babe, I don't know what to tell you. Moodang
Speaker 2: was born on July tenth, twenty twenty four, to mother Jonah,
Speaker 2: age twenty five and father Tony age twenty four, age
Speaker 2: gap in Siracha Kunbury, Thailand, at the aforementioned kaw Kio
Speaker 2: Open Zoo, and right away she had a whole pack
Speaker 2: of full and half pigmy hippo siblings Nadette, moutun Co, Kanya,
Speaker 2: Falo and Muwan. And from the moment she was born,
Speaker 2: the direction of Moodang's life was decided by the general public,
Speaker 2: to the extent that her name was voted on by
Speaker 2: regular zoo attendees. The options given by the zoo online
Speaker 2: were Moodang, which roughly translates to bouncy pork, mood dange
Speaker 2: or dae nnge red pork, or moosap which means minced pork.
Speaker 2: The public chose correctly and overwhelmingly, and Moodang got her
Speaker 2: name by jury at over twenty thousand votes. And is
Speaker 2: the name nice? I mean, I wouldn't love a name
Speaker 2: that was just a physical descriptor of my infancy. But
Speaker 2: it does make sense if I was named after what
Speaker 2: I looked like as a baby, they would be like
Speaker 2: meet Bald and Afraid Loftus. Moodang's course to fame is
Speaker 2: a little nonlinear. There's no exact post that can take
Speaker 2: full credit for her rise to prominence, but the naming
Speaker 2: poll does seem to be a big part of it.
Speaker 2: Some of the early posts that got the baby hippo
Speaker 2: attention nationally in Thailand were engineered by her zoo keeper,
Speaker 2: a man named Athapon Nundi, who regularly posted the cute
Speaker 2: animals he worked with to social media for five years.
Speaker 2: Then a Bangkok based seramicist named Yami Saracino, who saw
Speaker 2: one of Nundi's posts, translated the Moodang naming poll, and
Speaker 2: the story begins to creep westward. And I think it's
Speaker 2: worth mentioning that Moodang was TikTok algorithm crack from moment one.
Speaker 2: An early successful posts can be traced to an account
Speaker 2: that exclusively posted Thai hippo content and had over two
Speaker 2: million followers, because of course it did, but it didn't
Speaker 2: start there. Moodang became a sensation on a smaller scale,
Speaker 2: first on the zoo's Facebook, where she stood out from
Speaker 2: the crowd as the most playful, chubbiest of the hippo siblings,
Speaker 2: going nuts for the hose and getting a lot of attention.
Speaker 2: The kau Kio Open Zoo was very online prior to
Speaker 2: Moudang and regularly posted to Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. This
Speaker 2: is a very normal thing for zoos to do in
Speaker 2: the modern age to encourage and maintain attendance. The earliest
Speaker 2: post I can find about Moodang is two weeks after
Speaker 2: her birth on the zoo's instagram on July twent when
Speaker 2: the new hippo's birth was announced, leading with a picture
Speaker 2: of Moodang herself.
Speaker 8: The post says, this baby pigmy hippopotamus is a favorite
Speaker 8: of tourists who bring their children to admire its cuteness
Speaker 8: and take pictures as souvenirs. This baby pygmy hippopotamus is
Speaker 8: the seventh from this pair of parents at kaw Kio
Speaker 8: Open Zoo. At the moment, that baby pygmy hippopotamus does
Speaker 8: not have an aim, they will announce its name soon.
Speaker 2: The post goes on to describe that Moodang has been
Speaker 2: a hit among attendees because of her high energy and
Speaker 2: pension for biting her zoo keeper, and that there would
Speaker 2: be a discount promotion to line up with the King
Speaker 2: of Thailand's seventy second birthday, where she'd be on display.
Speaker 2: Admission to the zoo translates to about ten dollars and
Speaker 2: fifty cents in US dollars, and the zoo has been
Speaker 2: opened since back in the nineteen seventies. And look, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to bother analyzing why Moodang be king such
Speaker 2: an online sensation, because it couldn't be more obvious. She's
Speaker 2: fucking adorable. She's extremely expressive, and she seems to either
Speaker 2: be sleeping or screaming at all times. She was like
Speaker 2: born to be memed because she's immediately popular and immediately
Speaker 2: causes controversy. The Kalkio opened zoo director, a man named
Speaker 2: narongwit chad Choi, said that attendance doubled at the zoo
Speaker 2: in the weeks after her birth announcement and subsequent meaning contest,
Speaker 2: and that dangerous behavior from guests had escalated along with it.
Speaker 2: Before long, the zoo had to install security cameras and
Speaker 2: limit visiting hours to combat visitor behavior towards Moudang, which
Speaker 2: was said to include throwing things and spraying Moudang with
Speaker 2: water to get her to wake up for pictures. And
Speaker 2: keep in mind, baby hippos are only generally awake and
Speaker 2: playing for about two hours a day, and of course
Speaker 2: Moudang is exhibited far more than that. And all this
Speaker 2: happened before she became a global sensation on TikTok in
Speaker 2: early September twenty twenty four, when Moodang memes started to
Speaker 2: take over all of social media on TikTok, on Twitter,
Speaker 2: on Instagram and it kept escalating from there. Hyperallergic writer
Speaker 2: Issa Fharfan broke down the rapid uptick of Moodang from
Speaker 2: the if you know you know animal meme to a
Speaker 2: full blown corporatized image, and this happens in the course
Speaker 2: of a couple weeks. The first week of September mainly
Speaker 2: consisted of Moodang memes. The zoo had already had an
Speaker 2: optic in attendance and was promising an impending merch line.
Speaker 2: But as we just said, they weren't prepared for the
Speaker 2: amount of attention that the baby hippo had generated, and
Speaker 2: it took a little while to get their ducks or
Speaker 2: whatever endangered specie you want to replace ducks with in
Speaker 2: this metaphor in a row. But for my money, the
Speaker 2: Moodang memes kind of returned to this older style of
Speaker 2: meme format, one of those if you can't handle me
Speaker 2: at my blank, you don't deserve me at my blank
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. One of the most popular was from
Speaker 2: a user on Twitter called at Something's underscore awry. It
Speaker 2: says the rewards of being loved next to a picture
Speaker 2: of a peaceful baby Moodang who's smiling, then the mortifying
Speaker 2: ordeal of being known next to a picture of a blurry,
Speaker 2: screaming Moodang. I know you know the picture I'm talking about.
Speaker 9: Then.
Speaker 2: On September ninth, the Google search trend for Moodang starts
Speaker 2: climbing steadily as the mainstream media starts to catch on,
Speaker 2: and fan art from the first week of viral Moodang
Speaker 2: images keep increasing. Barfan notes that a lot of these
Speaker 2: fan images portray Moodng as a feminist icon, the image
Speaker 2: of her blurred and screaming body as the epitome of
Speaker 2: female ray.
Speaker 3: I can't lie.
Speaker 2: Some of these are very funny to me, like as
Speaker 2: her male zoo keeper WASH's Moodang. A TikTok user captioned it,
Speaker 2: to be a woman is to perform, and the tweets,
Speaker 2: of course, came in hot and heavy.
Speaker 8: There is light and curiosity in Moodang's eyes.
Speaker 9: If you need a timeline cleanse, I highly recommend like
Speaker 9: a bunch of Moodang posts, the algorithm is providing and
Speaker 9: now my feet is full of incredible baby hippo content.
Speaker 8: And she didn't have to serve this hard, but she
Speaker 8: did it for us.
Speaker 2: Novelty Moodang cakes were made on TikTok. The moist Moodang
Speaker 2: makeup tutorial was posted by a beauty influencer, and like clockwork.
Speaker 7: The brands came in.
Speaker 2: Most notably Sephora Thailand was right on top of the
Speaker 2: Moodang trend, encouraging customers to wear your blush like a
Speaker 2: baby hippo. In September, sports team got in on it too.
Speaker 2: The Phoenix Suns, Washington Commanders, and the New York Meds
Speaker 2: all photoshop their own promotional Moodang memes, and a tie
Speaker 2: delivery app put her image on their home screen and
Speaker 2: before you know it, people got even weirder about it
Speaker 2: because you can't have a viral animal without a bunch
Speaker 2: of weirdolls threatening to eat them. Twitter user big content
Speaker 2: Guy says.
Speaker 8: I'd smoke mood Dang for twelve hours like a brisk.
Speaker 2: On September eighteenth, and you would think that's the weirdest one.
Speaker 2: But our producer Ian did find this even worse one.
Speaker 8: It says, I'd marinate moodang and soy sauce with mad
Speaker 8: garlic and chili peppers, then coat the fat cap with
Speaker 8: coarse sea salt to dry out overnight. Then I'd smoke
Speaker 8: it over applewood and reverse sereate to crisp up, and
Speaker 8: I'd serve with Hawaiian rolls and coleslaw.
Speaker 2: Okay, is this kind of an edgeler joke? Yes, It's
Speaker 2: something I would have said when I was twenty two.
Speaker 2: But there are enough examples as the weeks go on
Speaker 2: of MoU Dang being either threatened to be killed or eaten,
Speaker 2: or being photoshopped doing something violent that she became This
Speaker 2: example of something called the cute aggression phenomenon which quicksidebar
Speaker 2: bear with me, is a proven psychological thing in some
Speaker 2: humans where they see something adorable and their first instinct
Speaker 2: is to, you know, squish.
Speaker 3: It, attack it, try to eat it.
Speaker 2: A literal embodiment of the iconic Despicable Me moment.
Speaker 7: Look at that flappy unicor. He don't set them in
Speaker 7: A guy's not flussy.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the minions, especially Kevin. I'm really curious
Speaker 2: if you experience this.
Speaker 7: I bravely do not.
Speaker 2: But a study from twenty eighteen estimated that about half
Speaker 2: of adults.
Speaker 7: Do you fucking se goes?
Speaker 2: And it's not like people who experience cute aggression are
Speaker 2: actually at risk to like squish a puppy's head until
Speaker 2: it pops off, you see. Riverside psychologist Catherine Stephropoulos describes
Speaker 2: the feeling as the human brain being overwhelmed by the
Speaker 2: positive emotion of seeing something adorable, which makes their lizard
Speaker 2: brain want to bite it.
Speaker 9: She says, when people feel this way, it's with no
Speaker 9: desire to cause harm. I think this is weird. I'm
Speaker 9: probably the only one who feels this way. I don't
Speaker 9: want to hurt it. I just want to eat.
Speaker 2: It, Okay, But I do think this does explain some
Speaker 2: of the reaction to MoU Dang. For example, a zoo
Speaker 2: attendee told AP News in September.
Speaker 7: She's such a cute little lump.
Speaker 2: I want to baller up and swallow her a whole.
Speaker 2: And I always wondered what this tendency was to like
Speaker 2: pretend to eat babies and small animals and have it
Speaker 2: be a socially acceptable cute thing to do. And it's
Speaker 2: that because the human mind, well, it's very small. And
Speaker 2: while some people were fantasizing about squishing, pummeling, and eating
Speaker 2: Moodang's chubby little body until she exploded, the zoo she
Speaker 2: lived at realized if they wanted to maintain Mudang's success,
Speaker 2: they had to get ahead of some things. On September nineteenth,
Speaker 2: ap News reported that the kau Kio Open Zoo was
Speaker 2: in the process of copywriting Mudang's likeness and the phrase
Speaker 2: Moodang the Hippo. That same director, narongwit Chad Choi, said.
Speaker 8: After we do this, we will have more income to
Speaker 8: support activities that will make the animals lives better.
Speaker 2: The plan was to make shirts and sweatpants only to
Speaker 2: be sold at the zoo, because by this point visitorship
Speaker 2: had more than quadrupled. Around four thousand visitors a day
Speaker 2: were watching Mudang for five minute intervals. After the zoo
Speaker 2: changed the policy before being told to hit the road,
Speaker 2: and because Mudang had had things thrown at her, the
Speaker 2: zoo had to put up a sign to remind visitors
Speaker 2: to stop throwing things at Moodang in three different languages.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to sixteenth minute, the podcast where we don't
Speaker 2: want to eat a baby hippo. Oh my god, we're
Speaker 2: talking about MoU Dang and two important things happened to
Speaker 2: our sweet girl at the end of September. Well, actually
Speaker 2: probably three. I'm assuming she was also hosed down. First,
Speaker 2: a twenty four hour live stream of Moodang is launched
Speaker 2: and hasn't stopped since. I have it on right now.
Speaker 2: And the live stream is a classic viral zoo tactic
Speaker 2: that first became popular in the two thousand and Most famously,
Speaker 2: the two month old baby Hippo hit the American mainstream
Speaker 2: hard when Bo and Yang appeared as Moodang on SNL
Speaker 2: just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 6: I'm ten weeks old, Colin. Of course I know chapel roone.
Speaker 6: And by the way, leave her alone. Let her take
Speaker 6: as much time as she needs for her mental health.
Speaker 6: We both deserve patience and grace, so stop harassing her
Speaker 6: and stop throwing shellfish at her. Do not yell my
Speaker 6: name or expect a photo just because I'm your parasocial
Speaker 6: bestie or because you appreciate my talent.
Speaker 2: I know you can't see it, but no matter what
Speaker 2: you think about this sketch, the costume is fucking incredible.
Speaker 2: And it's here where the Internet becomes extremely unwell about
Speaker 2: the whole Moodang situation. So in case you're a straight guy,
Speaker 2: this sketch is a reference to a recent round of
Speaker 2: discourse surrounding pop star Chapel Roone, who fucking rocks. I
Speaker 2: can't believe we finally have an openly lesbian pop star
Speaker 2: with great politics, and the public has responded by trying
Speaker 2: to kill her. But that, however, clunkily is the comparison
Speaker 2: that this sketch is obviously making. Chapel and Moudang both
Speaker 2: got famous out of nowhere over the summer, to the
Speaker 2: point where lifestyle adjustments had to be made to protect
Speaker 2: both of them. Not for nothing. She is also the
Speaker 2: most high profile pop star to be actively advocating for
Speaker 2: transwrites and Palestine. But I digress. The comparison being made
Speaker 2: here is clear and Bowen Yang screaming for a hose
Speaker 2: every three seconds is delightful.
Speaker 6: I'm your favorite hippo's favorite Pippo and time thirsty thirsty hose.
Speaker 2: But my god, if we needed proof that Moodang had
Speaker 2: fully invaded the zeitgeist and only kind of funny but
Speaker 2: still weirdly controversial, SNL sketch is an excellent yardstick. But
Speaker 2: the biggest controversy, one that's been raging on for over
Speaker 2: one hundred years, is should we even be able to
Speaker 2: aggle Moodang in the confines of a zoo at all?
Speaker 2: Should the zoo go the way of P. T. Barnum's
Speaker 2: circus and disappear? Okay, I'm sorry for punishing you with
Speaker 2: two greatest Showman bits, two episodes in a row. I
Speaker 2: just cannot get over how bad it is. Let's keep going.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of zoo's and
Speaker 2: I understand that I'm still probably in the minority there.
Speaker 2: And even this is a pretty new thing for me,
Speaker 2: something I learned around five years ago after you guessed it,
Speaker 2: going to the National Zoo in DC and doing some research.
Speaker 2: But I want to introduce you to the basics as
Speaker 2: to why I feel that way, because that does tie
Speaker 2: into the controversy that surrounds Moodang, the fact that she's
Speaker 2: not only an animal celebrity, but a zoo animal celebrity.
Speaker 2: There are cases to be made for zoos, provided that
Speaker 2: they are carefully regulated and that the appropriate professionals are
Speaker 2: hired and retained to make sure decisions are always made
Speaker 2: in the interest of the animals, not the interest of profit,
Speaker 2: because when profit is prioritized, people and animals get hurt.
Speaker 2: Look no further than public attractions like SeaWorld for what
Speaker 2: a severe animal and human cost Neglecting the interest of
Speaker 2: animals can result in. I'm, of course referring to Tillicum
Speaker 2: the orca, the captive animal who was involved in the
Speaker 2: death of three trainers famously covered in the twenty thirteen
Speaker 2: documentary Blackfish and Orcas are not naturally aggressive towards humans.
Speaker 2: This was largely thought to be a result of the
Speaker 2: unnatural circumstances and being forced to perform, as well as
Speaker 2: gross animal negligence on SeaWorld's part. More recently, there was
Speaker 2: the Tiger King saga, in which a now imprisoned Joe
Speaker 2: Exotic was found to be guilty of both animal abuse
Speaker 2: and exhibiting endangered species without a license or oversight. And
Speaker 2: these are just mainstream examples. They're the tip of the iceberg,
Speaker 2: but both have led to increased public demand for better
Speaker 2: regulation and a little bit of skepticism around exhibiting animals
Speaker 2: in general. If run well, zoos can help conserve endangered
Speaker 2: species while maintaining proper habitats for them, and can educate
Speaker 2: the human public on the importance of conservation.
Speaker 10: But but the case against zeus in their current form,
Speaker 10: to me, is far more compelling, and Moudeng's treatment by
Speaker 10: the public is a clear example of it.
Speaker 7: The quote that.
Speaker 2: Sticks with me most strongly comes from Dale Jamison and
Speaker 2: his book Ethics on the Arc.
Speaker 8: He says, zoos alleviate our sense of guilt for what
Speaker 8: we are doing to the planet, but they do little
Speaker 8: to help the animals we are driving to extinction.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what the Moodang phenomenon is right
Speaker 2: A topic of conversation that doesn't feel shitty to talk
Speaker 2: about during a period of enormous human unrest. So, in short,
Speaker 2: let's talk about why animal rights activists, a famously intense
Speaker 2: crowd I will admit, are ethically opposed to the zoo.
Speaker 2: Most advocates believe that zoos, particularly for profit zoos, are
Speaker 2: not a viable or ethical way to meaningfully conserve an
Speaker 2: endangered species. Activists feel that zoos are for profit breeding projects,
Speaker 2: with criticisms ranging from limited space to unnatural environment for
Speaker 2: a certain species, to outright mistreatment, whether that's physical abuse
Speaker 2: from trainers or harmful familial separation to maximize profits for
Speaker 2: the zoos themselves. And there's plenty of history even as
Speaker 2: animal protection laws develop, of zoos being poorly regulated, which,
Speaker 2: given their history and connection to things like circuses or
Speaker 2: private unethical animal collections like Joe Exotics, makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense depending on the animal. Most advocate to leave
Speaker 2: the animals in the wild or if their environment has
Speaker 2: been compromised by humans, in a sanctuary where specialists can
Speaker 2: provide the animals with good care, where they'll never you know,
Speaker 2: have stuff thrown at them to make them wake up
Speaker 2: for a TikTok.
Speaker 7: Here's what Keita.
Speaker 2: Asia had to say about the Moodang phenomenon on September twentieth.
Speaker 8: There is nothing cute about a baby being born in captivity.
Speaker 8: Hippos belong in the wild, but moudang will never live
Speaker 8: outside a cage, she faces a lifetime of confinement, deprived
Speaker 8: of her freedom and the opportunity to experience her natural
Speaker 8: habitat and the social structures of her species. Animals do
Speaker 8: not exist exist for our entertainment. Breeding them for public
Speaker 8: display perpetuates their suffering. Peta calls for an end to
Speaker 8: this cruel cycle and on zoos to prioritize conservation efforts
Speaker 8: that protect animals in nature where they truly belong.
Speaker 2: But as Moudang Zoo has alluded to, every time the
Speaker 2: subject of merch is broached, it's okay because the money
Speaker 2: from that merch and all of this increased attendance to
Speaker 2: see Moudang at the zoo will be put towards animal conservation.
Speaker 2: And I can't prove that's not true. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: the ku Kio Open Zoo does its level best to
Speaker 2: conserve the two thousand animals they have on display. I
Speaker 2: think PETA's concerns here are well placed, but there has
Speaker 2: been some dispute as to whether this point of view
Speaker 2: is globally applicable or if this is putting a more
Speaker 2: Western view on a zoo with different practices. And Peta
Speaker 2: is no stranger to scandals themselves, including inordinately high euthanasia
Speaker 2: rates of pets who enter their shelters. And what's more,
Speaker 2: Heata's narrative has been refuted by a different animal rights group,
Speaker 2: the Thai Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Speaker 2: This comes from Thai news outlet Niona Pologies for pronunciation
Speaker 2: or the Frontline.
Speaker 8: The past care of Mudang has been good to a
Speaker 8: certain extent, according to the international standard system that is
Speaker 8: accepted worldwide. However, if we want to take better care
Speaker 8: of it, we should take care of the temporary environment,
Speaker 8: such as the group of monkeys that came to steal
Speaker 8: its food and other things.
Speaker 3: I would like to encourage.
Speaker 8: The workers who take care of this little star ambassador,
Speaker 8: who has created a phenomenon on behalf of people all
Speaker 8: over the world, to turn back to take care of
Speaker 8: animals for conservation.
Speaker 2: And even so, this argument isn't really selling me on
Speaker 2: the idea of zoo's being viable. This representative is saying
Speaker 2: that the treatment of Moodang is technically up to international standards,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't eliminate the idea that allowing animals to
Speaker 2: be on display for profit might not be ethical. It's
Speaker 2: a really complicated issue, but for the moment, there's no
Speaker 2: doubt that Moodang will remain at the zoo until further notice,
Speaker 2: and that at the very least the zoo has been
Speaker 2: responsive to changing things in order to ensure her comfort,
Speaker 2: all while keeping her and her family on display. And finally,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be a mid twenty twenties press circuit without
Speaker 2: an irrational New York Post attempt to cancel a baby hippo.
Speaker 8: Come on, could Moudang be canceled? Leaked videos show those
Speaker 8: famed baby hippo biting zoo worker kind of mean. A
Speaker 8: late September video shot inside months old Moodang's enclosure within
Speaker 8: Thailand's Chamberry Zoo showed the feisty female coming at her
Speaker 8: caretaker while he was attempting to hose her down. Commenting
Speaker 8: on the widely circulated video, one person accused the animal
Speaker 8: of being quote kind of mean. According to The Daily Mail.
Speaker 3: Can we be serious?
Speaker 2: We can't be serious? And weirdly, this story might all
Speaker 2: sound a little familiar because it repeats the same pattern
Speaker 2: we saw with a different celebrity hippo god celebrity hippo
Speaker 2: Jamie said on her podcast and was dead serious. There
Speaker 2: was a second celebrity hippo. In twenty seventeen, the Cincinnati
Speaker 2: Zoo found their star.
Speaker 4: In Fiona the Hippo, from premature baby to bona fide brand,
Speaker 4: featured on merchandise, given her own.
Speaker 3: Ice cream plate, Chunky Chunky Hippo, even a.
Speaker 4: Campaign to make her Time magazine Person of the Year.
Speaker 2: In the world, including me watched as Fiona the Hippo recovered,
Speaker 2: the zoo posted videos of her in neonatal intensive care,
Speaker 2: being bottle fed, and even her first steps were documented
Speaker 2: and posted to a massive public response. And Fiona's arc
Speaker 2: was very similar to Mudang's. After she was finally safe
Speaker 2: and healthy, attendance at the zoo swelled to record highs.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, there was March, There was a bespoke
Speaker 2: ice cream flavor, and this was all said to be
Speaker 2: created in order to sustain the animal conservation efforts on site.
Speaker 2: When Fiona became a star, the Zoo's Facebook following more
Speaker 2: than doubled. And if this isn't and if this is
Speaker 2: any indication of things to come, Fiona's popularity has held
Speaker 2: strong after she was no longer a tiping little hippo.
Speaker 2: So it's very likely that Moudanng will be here to
Speaker 2: stay too. So I know how I feel about zoos,
Speaker 2: and I know that how I feel isn't going to
Speaker 2: shut it down. It's wonderful that there are meaningful conservation
Speaker 2: efforts being done with the money that zoo business generates,
Speaker 2: but I don't know that that's a fair way to
Speaker 2: justify the whole operation without examining whether it's actually healthy
Speaker 2: for the animals to be visually exploited for humans in
Speaker 2: order to preserve a species that is dying because of humans.
Speaker 2: This is a story we see again and again, going
Speaker 2: back to the pre Internet days. I'm no expert, so
Speaker 2: I turn to one and when we come back, we
Speaker 2: talk about the ethics of the Moodng phenomenon with zoologist
Speaker 2: Oliver aka Doctor Wildlife. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I
Speaker 2: can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm currently embroiled in
Speaker 2: some serious snoopy drama.
Speaker 7: Ah no dogs hard.
Speaker 2: There are indeed two warring factions of snoopy fans online.
Speaker 2: In one corner, an ardent leftist shout out to daily snoopies.
Speaker 2: In the other, corner, an account which randomly endorsed Donald
Speaker 2: Trump with an AI generated image of Snoopy shaking Charlie
Speaker 2: Brown donald Trump's hand. Fuck You Snoopy Weekly. If the
Speaker 2: story sticks around, maybe I'll cover it, But for the moment,
Speaker 2: I'm actually really busy this week fighting in the trenches
Speaker 2: on behalf of Daily Snoopies Fuck Snoopy Weekly, and this
Speaker 2: week we are getting to the bottom of one of
Speaker 2: this election year's most successful viral stars. The kaw Qio
Speaker 2: opened Zoos Pigmy Hippo, Baby Diva Moo Dang. To understand
Speaker 2: Moodang's moment, I wanted to speak with someone who has
Speaker 2: studied zoology and was open to the argument against zoos,
Speaker 2: and most importantly, someone who understands the major appeal of
Speaker 2: viral zoo animals. So here's my chat with Oliver aka
Speaker 2: Doctor Wildlife, a zoologist working in Toronto Enjoy.
Speaker 3: My name is Oliver, though most people online or otherwise
Speaker 3: know me as doctor Wildlife. I'm a zoologist with sixteen
Speaker 3: years of experience working in zoos and aquariums, starting as
Speaker 3: a zoo keeper and eventually moving into management roles. I've
Speaker 3: had the privilege of working with so many different animals.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because people ask me that and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: what have you worked with? And I think it's better
Speaker 3: to say, like, what haven't I worked with? But I've
Speaker 3: worked with things from really tiny pigmy marmosets, African elephants,
Speaker 3: nile crocodiles, so many different birds, and pretty much everything
Speaker 3: in between. My research and largely what my degrees were
Speaker 3: focused on, though, was with tigers, specifically their behavior and conservation.
Speaker 3: But out of all of that, I would say my
Speaker 3: biggest passion is science communication.
Speaker 2: So how did you first become interested in zoology? How
Speaker 2: did you first sort of decide that this was going
Speaker 2: to be your path?
Speaker 3: So funny enough, I actually was working towards being a
Speaker 3: veterinarian because I feel like every kid, when you're young
Speaker 3: and you're interested in animals, the whole world is like
Speaker 3: be a vet, Be a vet, Be a vet, because
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't understand there's a lot of
Speaker 3: other animal careers out there. There's all sorts of things
Speaker 3: that require different kinds of degrees or no degrees at all,
Speaker 3: but it's very interested in being a vet. I grew
Speaker 3: up on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas,
Speaker 3: of all places, I was around animals a lot, whether
Speaker 3: wild or the animals on our farm. So I had
Speaker 3: a keen interest, and I decided that I wanted to
Speaker 3: be a zoo veterinarians, so someone that specialized in zoo
Speaker 3: and aquarium work, and to get in the vet school
Speaker 3: of any kind, it's it's way harder than just med
Speaker 3: school surprisingly to get into, especially if you're wanting to
Speaker 3: be a zuova. Everybody wants to work with the lions
Speaker 3: and tigers, and so I was like, I'm going to
Speaker 3: do a lot of internships to make myself stand out.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until I started interning with tigers that
Speaker 3: I feel like the whole trajectory of my life changed.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I was researching and hadn't
Speaker 2: really looked into in some time before starting research for
Speaker 2: this episode that I've seen come up around Moudng is
Speaker 2: the argument around the ethical nature of zoos. It seems
Speaker 2: like you've worked at a wide variety of places with animals,
Speaker 2: at sanctuaries, at zoos, and elsewhere. From your perspective, because
Speaker 2: I'm coming in pretty cold, what are your feelings around
Speaker 2: that issue?
Speaker 3: Do you want me a single person that works in
Speaker 3: the zoo, aquarium or sanctuary world that doesn't dream of
Speaker 3: a reality where the animals under their care are out
Speaker 3: in the wild and lush, thriving environments, being safe, secure,
Speaker 3: not poached, and all these issues. Every single person is
Speaker 3: of that mindset, and I think that's like a very
Speaker 3: big common ground that a lot of people don't think about.
Speaker 3: When you think about the world of zoos and aquariums
Speaker 3: as having sides, I don't necessarily see it as sides.
Speaker 3: I think it's all one crazy mixture because the zoo
Speaker 3: aquarium world is surprisingly complicated. There's a lot of different
Speaker 3: aspects to it. When it comes to people who don't
Speaker 3: find them ethical, there is a difference between people that
Speaker 3: believe that because of their own personal morals, just personal
Speaker 3: compass of not wanting to see animals contained, and then
Speaker 3: there's kind of a combo of people who see them
Speaker 3: as unethical because they don't think there's welfare standards or
Speaker 3: any of that. And that's largely what I focus on
Speaker 3: helping people understand that the modern zoo and aquarium is
Speaker 3: very different than the zoos and aquariums of the past.
Speaker 3: That being said, not every zoo or aquarium is up
Speaker 3: to the same standards. But overall, there's crediting boards these
Speaker 3: days that take accreditation very seriously. They have inspections, random inspections.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of regulatory boards. There's so many zoos
Speaker 3: and aquariums to this day and age that provide such
Speaker 3: amazing care that I mean, I visit some places and
Speaker 3: when I see their habitats, I can easily be reduced
Speaker 3: to tears because I'm like, Okay, this is how you
Speaker 3: do a zoo habitat right, this is how you do
Speaker 3: an aquarium habitat right. Overall, I do agree that there
Speaker 3: are unethical places out there, but by and large, I
Speaker 3: don't think the field itself is, especially with modern technology
Speaker 3: and standards that I'm into play. We're always learning, I guess,
Speaker 3: is the best way to put it.
Speaker 2: I noticed that the zoo that Mudang is at is
Speaker 2: a for profit zoo. The zoo in Cincinnati that Fiona
Speaker 2: is at is a nonprofit zoo. Are there different regulations
Speaker 2: for a for profit versus a nonprofit?
Speaker 8: I just did.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand if that is a deciding factor of
Speaker 2: the kind of care and animal might receive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so funny enough. It ultimately isn't that big of
Speaker 3: a difference just because of those factors. I used to
Speaker 3: think so, like I used to be firmly against anything
Speaker 3: for profit in the animal world, especially in zoos and aquariums,
Speaker 3: because I'm like, Okay, these places are meant to be
Speaker 3: educational institutions or doing conservation work, So what's a for
Speaker 3: profit venture doing in this reality? But ultimately, something that
Speaker 3: affects standards and such more is mainly what area of
Speaker 3: the world they're in. But also, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: I say that there's a lot of nonprofit zoos, aquariums,
Speaker 3: sanctuaries in the United States that aren't accredited, don't meet
Speaker 3: standards at all, but they're nonprofit. So I guess yeah,
Speaker 3: And I guess the best way to answer your question
Speaker 3: is actually a terrible way to answer it, with it
Speaker 3: being just it really depends, because there's the whole world
Speaker 3: is just incredibly complex, and that world being Susan aquariums.
Speaker 3: I have actually worked at a for profit facility before
Speaker 3: that is accredited, that provides great standards. It feels like
Speaker 3: it's kind of when you walk in there, it's like
Speaker 3: a living rainforest rather than what most people picture a
Speaker 3: zoo beinge which is small cages or things like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, really no place is like that anymore. But
Speaker 3: you know, and it's for profit, and I've always joked
Speaker 3: that it kind of felt like I like I was
Speaker 3: working at Jurassic Park because because of the for profit
Speaker 3: nature and such, it felt like there was a lot
Speaker 3: more spending available for buying things, to the point that
Speaker 3: every plant in every habitat was an authentic plant species
Speaker 3: from the animal's habitat, you know, bought from greenhouses, of course,
Speaker 3: but they were all living. There was no fake plan,
Speaker 3: and that was because we had the funding to be
Speaker 3: able to do it. Of course, for profit doesn't always
Speaker 3: mean that level. It could mean bad things too, so
Speaker 3: you really have to kind of look at every little aspect.
Speaker 2: I guess hypothetical situation that is completely true. Let's say,
Speaker 2: so I have these complicated feelings around zoos. However, I
Speaker 2: don't really feel comfortable telling my cousins with my nieces
Speaker 2: and nephews to be like, don't bring your kids to
Speaker 2: a zoo, don't teach your children about animals. I understand
Speaker 2: that that's kind of a non starter. So if you
Speaker 2: are a family with kids and you want them to
Speaker 2: learn about animals in a hands on way. What is
Speaker 2: the best way for the average person to make sure
Speaker 2: that where they're going and what they're choosing is an
Speaker 2: ethical option.
Speaker 3: Ooh, that is a fantastic question. I think the first
Speaker 3: step would be to use the Association of Zoos and
Speaker 3: Aquarium's website to check if a place that you or
Speaker 3: intending on visiting as accredited or not. I think it
Speaker 3: says like find Zoos and Aquariums. There's something very obvious,
Speaker 3: but any case, you can look up every accredited animal facility.
Speaker 3: That being said, AZA is not necessarily you know, not
Speaker 3: all good facilities are AZA accredited, and not every facility
Speaker 3: that's AZA accredited may meet what I would personally say
Speaker 3: is like my personal standard of a place that I
Speaker 3: would personally go to. But it's a good starting point.
Speaker 3: You can look at it and you can be like, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: I at least know that they're meeting standards on top
Speaker 3: of what government regulations are, which are minimal, and then
Speaker 3: AZA step up. It's things like, you know, they have
Speaker 3: to meet certain vet standards, they have to have certain
Speaker 3: types of vet care and nutrition enrichment for animals. All
Speaker 3: the extra stuff the government regulations don't really look into.
Speaker 3: Good starting point. Another place to kind of look into
Speaker 3: is seeing how they interact with their animals all the time.
Speaker 3: If a place is allowing interaction between the public and
Speaker 3: big cats, that's a big no no. It sounds silly
Speaker 3: to say. Okay, on one hands, you have these like
Speaker 3: prestigious zoos, and on the other hand you have higer
Speaker 3: king type places. The scary part is all the places
Speaker 3: in between where sometimes you can't really tell. So it's
Speaker 3: looking for if it's easy a and then kind of
Speaker 3: looking into how do the keepers interact with the animals there,
Speaker 3: and how does the public interact. That's not to say
Speaker 3: that any place as public interaction is automatically bad. It's
Speaker 3: more about what frequency they do it, what species that's
Speaker 3: involved with what you're allowed to do. It does require
Speaker 3: a bit of research, but if someone wants to do
Speaker 3: the nice and easy route, we all have busy lives,
Speaker 3: right so aza go on there. You can use the
Speaker 3: find one near you search and easily find something that
Speaker 3: meets higher standards.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and
Speaker 2: talk about the role of social media and animal education.
Speaker 2: So because you've been in this space for sixteen years now.
Speaker 2: How have zoologists changed in the way that they use
Speaker 2: the Internet to educate in the time you've been in
Speaker 2: this field.
Speaker 3: Oh, they've changed tremendously and I've all seeing a zoologists
Speaker 3: also is using aquariums starting to be more informal about
Speaker 3: how they educate. I think one of the most amazing
Speaker 3: examples of that is Monterey Bay Aquariums social media presence
Speaker 3: doing tweets, Like my favorite one that they did was
Speaker 3: they tweeted just the ocean. That's all they said, like
Speaker 3: the ocean, and it got like I say, millions of likes.
Speaker 3: It's probably it's not that high, but thousands of likes
Speaker 3: and retweets. And sometimes they would just tweet something with
Speaker 3: like short silly things, and you know, old fashioned educators
Speaker 3: or zoologists may look at that and be like, well,
Speaker 3: what is this doing? Well, okay, you tell me how.
Speaker 3: You know it's so excited about a sea urchin, right, Like,
Speaker 3: how are you gonna get someone to care about those animals?
Speaker 3: So I think scientists, zoologists, I'll you know, whatever title
Speaker 3: they hold, you started using the Internet in very interesting ways.
Speaker 3: Of course, twitch is a whole other side of that, right,
Speaker 3: not being afraid to get on there and be silly,
Speaker 3: play games that are educational or maybe even just a
Speaker 3: fraction educational, but talking about animals while doing it. I
Speaker 3: keep saying it's the year of science on Twitter and Twitch.
Speaker 2: God, I hope so that would be very excise crossed.
Speaker 2: I would love to see science get trash beg a
Speaker 2: lot of other.
Speaker 3: Things begging into the sky right now at that, I hope, so.
Speaker 2: Sort of talking about these social media juggernaut animals that
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that there's so many examples of this,
Speaker 2: obviously pre dating social media that are more reliant on
Speaker 2: marketing narratives, but on social media, the zoo does not
Speaker 2: quite have control over the narrative as they once did.
Speaker 2: How did you find out about MoU dang? And where
Speaker 2: does your head go when you see an animal suddenly
Speaker 2: become famous?
Speaker 3: No, it's so funny. I just feel like that little
Speaker 3: hippo just appeared so suddenly that I can't exactly remember
Speaker 3: where was the first place I saw them. The first
Speaker 3: moment that I can like directly really remember is something
Speaker 3: really funny. Was one of my friends sharing a video
Speaker 3: that I don't know who the original creator of it
Speaker 3: was and I can't remember what all was in the video,
Speaker 3: but I it was moo as a kaiju like big
Speaker 3: like god Zilla destroying a city. And one of my
Speaker 3: friends sent it to me and they're like, is this
Speaker 3: a real behavior that hippos have as a joke? And
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, trust me, I'm a zoo oda
Speaker 3: just that's exactly what happens. And then from that moment onward,
Speaker 3: I just feel like the hippo is taken over every
Speaker 3: everybody's brain. And you see all these edits on TikTok
Speaker 3: and such. Yeah, and my first thought, of course, is well,
Speaker 3: I'm very easily entertained. I'm a very simple person, and
Speaker 3: I love anything with that baby hippo right now, just
Speaker 3: like all of us. I guess I try not to
Speaker 3: be cynical what is the viral animal at first? But
Speaker 3: in the day and age of where there's all these
Speaker 3: social media accounts that just pump out content regardless of
Speaker 3: what the background is and such. If something doesn't have
Speaker 3: context behind it, I'm always a little skeptical at first. Usually,
Speaker 3: and I see just an animal video going viral, my
Speaker 3: first concern is like, Okay, well, where is this from,
Speaker 3: what's the story behind it, I'll do a little bit
Speaker 3: of research. Not everybody does that. That's why I'm a
Speaker 3: big proponent of if you're posting animal content, at least
Speaker 3: give some sort of background info. Right now, I don't
Speaker 3: think there needs to be background info because everybody knows
Speaker 3: this hippo. Everybody knows who this hippo is.
Speaker 2: At this point, what can and should zoos and zoo
Speaker 2: keepers do to protect their animals from this kind of
Speaker 2: sudden surge of attention because it seemed like it took
Speaker 2: it took the zoo a second to be like, well,
Speaker 2: hold on, and they made all these adjustments, like they
Speaker 2: made adjustments to make it safe for mudang. But in
Speaker 2: the age of social media where this is apparently a risk,
Speaker 2: what should professionals do to sort of be prepared for that?
Speaker 2: And what would you recommend?
Speaker 3: You asking this question kind of like just in this
Speaker 3: moment gave you this idea. It's like you almost need someone.
Speaker 3: I feel like there should be a workshop for zoos
Speaker 3: or some sort of training that it's like a preemptive.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like what to do when your animal
Speaker 3: goes viral? Kind of course, because you know, say you
Speaker 3: start posting like Bob the Elephant. I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: come up with something that doesn't maybe doesn't exist, but
Speaker 3: Bob the Elephant goes viral. You could post something and
Speaker 3: a million times of that elephant and it doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 3: It's like two likes, and then you just happened to
Speaker 3: tweet the right video and caption combo and it has
Speaker 3: to be you know, it's filmed in just the correct
Speaker 3: way or cut in the correct way, and you wake
Speaker 3: up and you have thousands of likes, and then from
Speaker 3: there it just grows and grows. And this is something
Speaker 3: you know, I know it didn't take exactly just one
Speaker 3: day for her to become like this, but in reality,
Speaker 3: it is kind of like the blink of an eye.
Speaker 3: You don't really have time to prepare. So I feel
Speaker 3: like the best way for zoo keepers or anybody in
Speaker 3: animal care that's that's listening to this and curious, or
Speaker 3: just people curious in general, I think the best way
Speaker 3: is to just learn from all these situations and really yourself,
Speaker 3: or at least have someone on your team or at
Speaker 3: the zoo that immerses themselves in social media. And I'm
Speaker 3: not talking about just someone that's familiar with how to
Speaker 3: do social media or marketing, and I'm talking about be
Speaker 3: immersed in internet culture. Unfortunately, I make a little sad
Speaker 3: sound as I say that, this unfortunately means being familiar
Speaker 3: with memes and understanding how things go viral, and I
Speaker 3: think from that you can kind of prepare yourself as
Speaker 3: best as you can. It's unfortunate that there really is
Speaker 3: no tried and true way to protect against things, because
Speaker 3: it's like, who would have expected that people would go
Speaker 3: somewhere and grow things to try and get the animal's attention.
Speaker 3: People that do those things too, it's not always malicious.
Speaker 3: It's people that just don't think about their actions and
Speaker 3: the impact it has on animals. They just want to
Speaker 3: be entertained, and that's right.
Speaker 2: There's like that level of entitlement, which I feel like
Speaker 2: goes back to the argument about like, well, should zoos
Speaker 2: exist if there's always going to be bad actors?
Speaker 3: You know, I've been at zoos that have the most
Speaker 3: amazing signage in the whole world, and you know, do
Speaker 3: everything they can for it, will recommend people for their
Speaker 3: bad behavior when they catch them. But there's these people
Speaker 3: that just don't care. And I always say that a
Speaker 3: lot of that bad behavior continues because no one has
Speaker 3: ever told them no in their entire lives, you know,
Speaker 3: from the moment they were born.
Speaker 2: My last question is what can zoos and zoo keepers
Speaker 2: kind of take away from the mudang osaga. From the
Speaker 2: huge public response to this little baby hippo.
Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing is realizing that baby hippo
Speaker 3: fans are about to be like, get their pitchforks up
Speaker 3: in an instant, but please please hold them for a moment.
Speaker 3: As I say this, I think zoo keepers and zoos
Speaker 3: aquariums need to realize this baby hippo. It's gonna sound terrible.
Speaker 3: She is not unique. And I say that and people
Speaker 3: are like and she's unique in the sense that she
Speaker 3: has her own personality. You know, she is unique in
Speaker 3: that way. But what I guess I'm saying is she
Speaker 3: doesn't have this magical spell on her or this special
Speaker 3: quality that just makes her like the only baby hippo
Speaker 3: in the entire world that can be famous. And we know,
Speaker 3: of course from Fiona that's it's already not true. But
Speaker 3: I guess what I'm saying as this sounds mean, But
Speaker 3: what I mean is your animals. You know, if you're
Speaker 3: a zoo keeper listening to this. Your animals are just
Speaker 3: as important, They're just as awesome, And all it takes
Speaker 3: is kind of the right way of communicating about them,
Speaker 3: the white right way of talking to guests about them
Speaker 3: to make them get the same level of attention. And
Speaker 3: I think it's really important for animals to get this
Speaker 3: level of attention. So many animals that aren't fortunate enough
Speaker 3: to be as charismatic as say a tiger or a
Speaker 3: giant pandas that doesn't mean that they're less worthy of
Speaker 3: being conserved or cared for or having attention on them.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't mean that your friendly little tarantla that
Speaker 3: you work with at an aquarium will never get the
Speaker 3: level of virality as this hippo has. All it means
Speaker 3: is you may need to change how you're talking about
Speaker 3: them to get this attention. I'm not saying everybody should
Speaker 3: strive to be just as viral, as we've already talked about,
Speaker 3: it can be a negative thing. It brings a lot
Speaker 3: of awareness, and I just wanted to mention that, you know,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite projects that I've had the opportunity
Speaker 3: of reading and viewing and even meeting the creator up
Speaker 3: was photo Arc by Joel Satori, and I made me
Speaker 3: mispronouncing his name ever so slightly if so. Apologies, but
Speaker 3: Joel created photo Arc as a way to inspire people
Speaker 3: to help save at risk species before it's too late.
Speaker 3: In what photo Arc is is just what it sounds like.
Speaker 3: He is working towards photographing every animal under human care
Speaker 3: anywhere in the world, and he does so through these
Speaker 3: amazing what you would call like intimate portraits where it's
Speaker 3: I jokingly told somebody the other day, it's like the
Speaker 3: animal got taken to J. C. Penny and got put
Speaker 3: in front of that's dating myself, I guess. But some
Speaker 3: of those photos that he takes are the last chance
Speaker 3: these animals have to get attention before they unfortunately go extinct.
Speaker 3: And you know, this is an extreme example, but there
Speaker 3: was a frog species, very cute one though some people
Speaker 3: may argue not cute, called a Rabs fringe limb tree frog,
Speaker 3: and these guys went extinct in Panama due to a
Speaker 3: fungus that was spread by human activity that's decimated amphibian populations.
Speaker 3: And this Rab's fringeland tree frog actually went completely extinct
Speaker 3: in Panama. And there was only one individual left, and
Speaker 3: Joel took a lot of amazing photos of this animal,
Speaker 3: and a few of years later that animal passed away.
Speaker 3: And now that animals, that species is gone. It's just gone.
Speaker 3: And this is an extreme example. But pygmy hippo, who
Speaker 3: really thought about them before? Right? Who thought about this species?
Speaker 3: And if it wasn't for her, who would have known
Speaker 3: they even existed. Same thing with so many countless other
Speaker 3: species and a lot of people. You know, this goes
Speaker 3: to general public, but also the zoo keepers listening. The
Speaker 3: world's a very scary place right now for a lot
Speaker 3: of reasons. The environment. I mean, we have a giant
Speaker 3: hurricane coming and temperatures and all these climate crisis is
Speaker 3: environmental issues and coaching and such. It's hard not to
Speaker 3: get negative. It's hard not to be pestimistic and be like, well,
Speaker 3: this is it. We tried, there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of good left in the world.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of good people willing to do good things.
Speaker 3: They just need to be armed with that information. They
Speaker 3: need to be aware, and they need to be able
Speaker 3: to relate to these animals. And as silly as picturing
Speaker 3: this hippo as like a Godzilla type kaiju destroying a city.
Speaker 3: As silly as those things are, as unrelated to science
Speaker 3: as they are. Who would have thought that it could
Speaker 3: have gotten this many people to care about pigmy hippospecies.
Speaker 3: So I guess to summarize that, it's every animal has
Speaker 3: a chance to be just as special. I encourage people
Speaker 3: to take a look at how they can talk about
Speaker 3: their animals in entertaining ways, go out of the box,
Speaker 3: be a little weird with it.
Speaker 2: Oh Oliver, thank you so much for joining us and
Speaker 2: for just speaking so thoughtfully. It's so nice to spend
Speaker 2: a little time with you and really feel your passion
Speaker 2: for what you do.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me and being
Speaker 3: interested in chatting.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Oliver for their time, and
Speaker 2: you can follow their work more over at the link
Speaker 2: in the description. So where does Moodang go from here?
Speaker 2: If she's anything like Fiona the hippo, she'll be a
Speaker 2: source of income for her zoo of residence for a
Speaker 2: long time to come, and it's very possible that that
Speaker 2: money will be used to preserve her species. But as
Speaker 2: we said before in the last few weeks, the ku
Speaker 2: Kio Open Zoo has made an effort to formally trademark
Speaker 2: Moudang's image, not to protect her from being commercialized, but
Speaker 2: to make certain that only they could commercialize her. Can
Speaker 2: we do better?
Speaker 7: I hope so.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, give my girl the hose anytime
Speaker 2: she fucking wants it. Moodang, the baby Hippo. May You're
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, never end baby, And for your moment of fun,
Speaker 2: here's a cursed mood Dang parody song from the Edge,
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Long May she rain.
Speaker 8: You my little mood eh pig me Hippo and the
Speaker 8: zoo thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah we know, because hey, you so famous.
Speaker 10: The most decision scene, I am less.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: We see the names on memes, on memes.
Speaker 3: Fans signing up just to hear them scream. It's all
Speaker 3: memes on memes on names.
Speaker 1: It's too much fame for us.
Speaker 7: The Prey Little Being.
Speaker 2: Sixteenth Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and
Speaker 2: iHeart Rodeos. It is written, hosted, and produced by me
Speaker 2: Jamie Lostis. Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans.
Speaker 2: The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Speaker 1: Our theme song.
Speaker 7: Is by Sad thirteen.
Speaker 2: Voice acting is from Grant Crater and pet Shout outs
Speaker 2: to our dog producer Anderson, my cat's flee and Casper,
Speaker 2: and my pet rock Bert, who will outlive us all.
Speaker 1: Bye.