Baby Hippo Biting Leg

About

Baby Hippo Biting Leg, also known as Baby Hippo Bite, is an exploitable image macro of a pygmy hippo biting the leg of a human zookeeper wearing cowboy boots, however, the image is perceived as cute or wholesome rather than gruesome due to the animal's inability to cause harm. The image comes from a mid-2022 Facebook post from a zoo in Thailand. The hippo is named "Moo Wan," which translates to "Sweet Pork." The photograph was used in memes on Twitter and Instagram, paired with various captions.

Origin

On June 23rd, 2022, photographers at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand posted a photo to their Facebook^[1] page ขาหมู แอนด์เดอะแก๊ง (Sweet Pork and the Gang) that showed a baby, pygmy hippo named Moon Wan (Sweet Pork) biting the booted leg of a zookeeper, captioning it, "หมับเข้าให้ แง่มๆ [Pin it in. Blind]." Over the course of six days, the post received roughly 35,000 reactions and 15,000 shares (shown below, left).

Additionally, on June 25th, the official TikTok ^[2] page of the Khao Kheow Open Zoo (@khamoo.andthegang) posted a video of the baby hippo biting the zookeeper's leg, earning roughly 3.6 million plays and 279,500 likes (shown below, right).

Spread

The image trended within Thai internet circles going into the days that followed. For instance, on June 25th, 2022, the Facebook^[3] page of ขาหมู แอนด์เดอะแก๊ง posted a Spider-Man meme that showed the zookeeper becoming "Hippo-Man" after the baby hippo bite by using a scene from the Moon Knight TV series that depicts the character Taweret. The meme received roughly 110,000 reactions and 12,000 shares in four days (shown below).

Also on June 25th, 2022, Tumblr ^[4] user sleepy-bebby posted the baby hippo image, captioning it "ultraviolence," receiving roughly 48,400 notes in four days (shown below, left). On June 26th, Twitter^[5] user BruceinKY tweeted the image and used the notable catchphrase 'Become Ungovernable.' The tweet received roughly 675,800 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Predominantly inspired by BruceinKY's tweet,^[5] the baby hippo image macro was used in many memes going into the remainder of 2022. For instance, on June 26th, 2022, the image was submitted to Reddit's /r/photoshopbattles^[6] for users to exploit. The post received roughly 24,000 upvotes in three days. Many Redditors uploaded their photoshops to Imgur and linked them in the comment section (examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References