Spinning Gorilla

Submission 22,272

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About

Spinning Gorilla refers to a viral video of a silverback gorilla spinning in front of the glass in a zoo which went viral in April 2020 thanks to series of shitpost edits.

Origin

On September 4th, 2009, YouTube^[1] user KennyCamacho1 uploaded a video of a silverback gorilla spinning in front of the glass in a zoo. The video accumulated over 710,000 views in eleven years (shown below).

The video did not see use in memes until on April 6th, 2020, Twitter^[2] user @yvessaintlacan uploaded a Would You Rather? meme which offered a choice between having a gay son and a spinning gorilla, with the meme accompanied by "Meathook" by Mick Gordon from the Doom Eternal soundtrack. The post received over 8,200 retweets and comments, 38,700 likes and 458,000 views in two months (shown below).

Spread

On the same day, YouTube^[3] user The God of Nose reposted the part of the video with the gorilla to YouTube, gaining over 6,300 views. On April 7th, iFunny^[4] user Wench and Redditor^[5] slimthiccbois both reposted @yvessaintlacan's meme, with the reposts gaining over 3,400 smiles on iFunny and 17,800 upvotes on Reddit.

On April 6th and 7th, The God of Nose posted seven edits of the video accompanied by various metal compositions.

Starting in early April 2020, multiple users online posted edits of the original meme, with many examples following Would You Rather? format. For example, before April 12th, 2020, an unknown user posted a Would You Rather? meme offering a choice between the spinning gorilla and its counter-clockwise counterpart. An April 12th reposts by Twitter^[6] account @WeirdestMp4 (shown below) and April 17th repost in /r/okbuddyretard^[7] received over 1,500 likes and 25,900 upvotes, respectively.

In June 2020, the video saw another surge in popularity after gaining spread in edits on Instagram.^[8]^[9]

ORANGATANGABANGIN

ORANGATANGABANGIN, sometimes known as Gorilla Da Spinna, is a 2021 hip-hop song by rap group $tatic Goonz featuring B-MAN, notable for using the opening track "Sweden" from the video game Minecraft in its beat. The song went viral on TikTok in March 2021 following the virality of a number of videos tracking its recording process on the platform.