The Monkey Chain, The Monkey's Fist, The Monkey

About

The Monkey Chain, The Monkey's Fist, The Monkey! refers to a TikTok trend in which people show off parts of their cat before revealing its face. The catchphrase comes from a dialogue in SpongeBob SquarePants where the Flying Dutchman shows SpongeBob how to tie various knots. The sound came to be used on TikTok in January 2024, initially by people showing their cats and subsequently by people showing off other pets.

Origin

The SpongeBob SquarePants^[1] episode "Your Shoe's Untied" aired on February 17th, 2001. In it, the Flying Dutchman shows SpongeBob how to tie various knots to help him tie his shoes (shown below).

TikToker @kaiju_memez posted a video^[2] using sound from the scene on December 4th, 2023, gathering over 1.4 million plays and 130,000 likes in two months (seen below).

Spread

Various TikTokers posted videos using the sound to show off their cat on January 23rd, 2024. TikToker^[3] @leggymyreggy's upload gathered over 5 million plays and 700,000 likes in three days (seen below, left). Also on January 23rd, TikToker^[4] @mattym207 posted a video that gathered over 1.8 million plays and 300,000 likes in three days (seen below, right).

On January 23rd, TikToker^[5] @renusdelph posted a similar video that gathered over 2 million plays and 300,000 likes in three days (seen below, left). Also on January 23rd, TikToker^[6] @_tireddd_'s video gathered over 740,000 plays and 95,000 likes in three days (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References