Pakda Gya / Guy Holding Monkey

Submission 1,248

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About

Pakda Gya! also known as Guy Holding Monkey is an exploitable meme template popularized in India. The meme is used to represent people who have been "caught" doing something perceived to be worthy of shame or derision. The image originated from a copypasta prank on Facebook before it gained prominence as a meme template on Twitter.

Origin

The photo of a man holding up a monkey first began making rounds in February 2021 as part of a Fillipino copypasta bait-and-switch prank trend. The photo was posted with a caption that translates to "A monkey was caught in the city of Surigao after repeatedly pressing … See More," with the joke being that a person who presses the "see more" button with no result is a monkey.

The earliest known notable post making this joke was on February 8th, 2021 on the Facebook^[1] page Surigao Islands, gathering over 300 likes and 2,800 shares (seen below). The joke was reposted for consecutive years in several languages.^[2]

The earliest known use of the image as a meme template is a March 7th, 2023 post by Twitter^[3] user @firki07, in a post that gathered over 4,000 likes (seen below).

Spread

On March 20th, 2023, Twitter^[4] user @DenissForReal posted a tweet about the Patna Junction incident, gathering over 300 likes in over a week (seen below, left). Also on March 20th, Twitter^[5] user @illogical_7 posted a similar meme, gathering over 1,600 likes in over a week (seen below, right).

On March 20th, Twitter^[6] user @lazyy_girll posted a meme about being caught eating milk powder in the kitchen, gathering over 300 likes in over a week (seen below, left). On March 20th, 2023, Twitter^[7] user @Amanprabhat9 posted a tweet using the meme to make a joke about Civil Service aspirants who watch motivational videos instead of studying. The post gathered over 1,180 likes in a week (seen below, right).