Sliding Gorilla

Submission 6,927

Part of a series on Monkeys / Apes. [View Related Entries]

About

Sliding Gorilla or Gorilla Slide refers to a viral video of a large gorilla sliding towards laughing women at a zoo and then turning around to show his butt to them. It was originally posted on TikTok in mid-2022 and was taken at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina. The sliding gorilla is named Cenzoo. After being posted, the video was shared to Reddit, Twitter and Instagram, among other websites, where it was recaptioned, re-edited and exploited en masse.

Origin

On August 2nd, 2022, TikToker^[1] its_just_me0215 posted a video that she took at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC, wherein, the large, father gorilla named Cenzoo came out of a door on the far side of the habitat and slid across the floor using the loose grass strewn around the room. In one day, the video received roughly 29.1 million plays and 5.8 million likes (shown below).

Spread

On TikTok, its_just_me0215 responded to multiple suggestions within their comment section, like one from TikToker masterchief_keef who wanted the Tokyo Drift song to be added to it. TikToker^[2] its_just_me0215 did this in a video posted on August 2nd, earning roughly 1.4 million plays and 97,300 likes in one day (shown below, left). Also on August 2nd, TikToker^[3] tanners.tiktok posted a duet with the video, showing what his reaction would be at the zoo on the other side of the glass. His duet received roughly 1.8 million plays and 289,900 likes in one day (shown below, right).

The sliding gorilla video quickly spread elsewhere on the same day. For instance, on August 2nd, Redditor SamMee514 posted it to /r/Damnthatsinteresting,^[4] earning roughly 16,400 upvotes in one day. An hour later, Redditor amish_novelty posted it to /r/oddlysatisfying, ^[5] earning roughly 148,000 upvotes in one day.

Around the same time on August 2nd, Twitter^[6] user WolfeyGlick tweeted the video with the caption, "Rillaboom using Grassy Glide," in reference to the Pokémon character. In one day, the video received roughly 7.1 million views and 233,100 likes via the tweet (shown below).

On August 2nd, 2022, Instagram^[7] user bepiz.man used the video and layered Snapchat text overlay reading, "Bro slide cancelled to show his ass ☠️." The reel received roughly 778,200 likes in three weeks (shown below). Later on August 2nd, 2022, Twitter^[8] user PerfectlyShots tweeted the video, receiving roughly 11.6 million views and 629,300 likes in less than a day.

More memes, quote retweets and edits of the Gorilla Slide video emerged online continuing into the remainder of August 2022.