Leaning Monkey with Red Pants

About

Leaning Monkey with Red Pants is an image macro and exploitable meme template featuring a sad-looking monkey leaning against a wall with one hand, notably looking down while wearing a pair of red pants. The image is generally used to represent an introspective or sad thought and became a prominent meme template on Indian Twitter and Instagram during the early 2020s.

Origin

While the origin of the image of a monkey leaning against a wall retrospectively is currently unknown, the earliest known use of the meme is a December 23rd, 2021, tweet by @yourusualmedcop that translates to "It's very cold, man."^[1] The post gathered over 170 likes in two years (seen below).

Spread

On February 4th, 2023, Twitter^[2] user @Memeswalaladka posted a version of the meme to comment on being middle class, gathering 300 likes and 140 retweets in two months (seen below, left). On February 5th, Twitter^[3] user @ijoooolly posted a version of the meme using the Dheere Dheere Samajh Aa Raha Hai phrasal template, gathering over 300 likes and 130 retweets in two months (seen below, right).

On February 29th, 2023, Instagram^[4] page @d0ge_cheems posted a version of the meme joking about the Hindi saying "Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad," which translates to, "What would a monkey know about the taste of ginger." The post gathered over 1,000 likes in two months (seen below, left). On February 23rd, Twitter^[5] user @shivani_yaar posted a version of the meme that gathered over 700 likes on Twitter in two months (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References