Pointing Orangutan

About

Pointing Orangutan, also known as Amber The Orangutan, refers to an Oranguntan from the Louisville Zoo who went viral on TikTok in May 2024 after a vlogger started sharing content showing the animal pointing at objects being shown to her. In mid-August 2024, the pointing orangutan became the subject of parodies and memes in which people replicated the same gestures of the animal pointing at objects in various videos and skits. Many of the videos participating in the trend use the on-screen caption "the orangutan on my fyp page."

Origin

The earliest viral video featuring Amber the orangutan from the Louisville Zoo was posted by TikTok^[1] user @tay.walk on May 9th, 2023. The video (seen below, left) shows the animal pointing at the visitor's purse, appearing to ask what's inside and then curiously staring at items inside the bag as the person digs them out. The video amassed more than 18 million plays and 1.6 million likes in a year.

On May 27th, 2024, the TikTok^[2] page @pointingorangutan was created, dedicated to videos featuring Amber pointing at the visitor's items and objects. The first video posted on the day of the account's creation (seen below, right) received over 4 million plays and 118,000 likes in four months.

Spread

Content featuring the pointing orangutan was popularized online in late July and early August 2024, inspiring jokes and parodies in which people mimic the animal's gestures.

For example, on August 3rd, 2024, TikTok^[3] user @iristoyryla posted a video pretending to be the pointing orangutan (seen below, right), which amassed roughly 3,000 plays and 350 likes in two weeks. On August 17th, TikTok^[4] user @sirca___ posted a similar parody video (seen below, right), which amassed over 2 million plays and 422,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References