Currently at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, there resides a little hippo by the name of Moo Deng. Moo Deng, a nearly three-month-old hippo, has become an internet sensation, appearing all over the news, social media, and merchandise around the world.
Moo Deng started growing a fan base around September, after blowing up on TikTok from a post of her playfighting with her zookeeper. Since then, her TikTok following went from somewhere in the ten-thousands, to nearly 3 million in just the past 2 months. Moo Deng’s videos spread to other social media platforms and accounts as well, with many artists, clothing brands, and make up brands creating videos, art or collections inspired by her.
With Moo Deng’s fame comes both popularity – and controversy. Moo Deng has since appeared on more than twenty different news sources, some of these being CNN, Forbes, CNET, and even SNL. However, many sources have also covered some of the mistreatment of Moo Deng, stating that she should be in the wild instead. World Protection US states that “Khao Kheow Open Zoo is an exploitative venue that sells dangerous interactions with wild animals,” and that “sharing Moo Deng content might seem innocuous, but it promotes cruelty to animals.” The zoo is also flagged for not meeting TripAdvisor’s animal welfare guidelines, raising concern about the quality of life being provided for Moo Deng.
Moo Deng’s fame has also brought a lot of attention to the zoo. With ticket sales doubling and the zoo seeing thousands of extra visitors a week, Moo Deng is having trouble keeping up with the attention that’s been brought to her. Baby hippos are typically only awake and playing for roughly two hours a day, and the rest of their time is spent napping. So, when visitors come and they see Moo Deng sleeping, some will try to throw things at her or use loud noises and to try to wake her up, which scares Moo Deng. This issue has been ongoing, and the zoo is trying to fix the issue, but it is hard with the number of visitors to stop everybody from doing it. This ends up causing stress for little Moo Deng.
All in all, Moo Deng the baby hippo is an internet sensation right now with her memes, pictures and videos being posted nearly everywhere. However, there’s great controversy surrounding the treatment of Moo Deng from both zookeepers and guests, bringing into question both the integrity and innocence of Moo Deng’s story.
