The Real Reason We’re Obsessed With Moo Deng

If you have been online recently, then you know we are all Moo Deng and she is us.

The two-month-old pygmy hippo has become a viral internet sensation and a popular tourist attraction. Moo Deng was born in July at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, but she already has thousands of new admirers clamoring to catch a glimpse of her tiny round face and chubby, pink cheeks.

The zoo told Reuters that it usually gets only 800 visitors during the rainy season, but it is now getting 3,000 to 4,000 people on weekdays, with most waiting to see Moo Deng, whose name means “bouncy pork” in Thai. The infant pygmy hippo has become so popular that visitors can now only see her for five minutes on weekends, the zoo said.

Why can’t we get enough of Moo Deng? There’s a scientific reason we would “kill and die to protect” her, as one person put it online.

“She is designed to be cute, and we are designed by evolution to find her to be cute and want to hug her, pet her,” said research scientist Daniel Kruger, who studies evolutionary psychology at the University of Michigan and the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Back in the 1940s, ethologist Konrad Lorenz coined the idea of a baby schema (“Kindchenschema”) — or a set of infantile physical features like a large head, round face and big eyes — thought to motivate caregiving behaviors in adults.

“The baby hippo has really got some of those Kindchenschema ― the roundness, the little fat folds, things like that ― those are definitely hitting that cord,” said social psychologist Oriana Aragón.

When we see a baby hippo like Moo Deng, “we want to take care of it, we want to provide nutrition, we want to provide protection” as a result of our biological programming, Aragón said. “It’s really about the survival of our species.”

“If the baby hippo had very angular features and was not so what we would call canonically cute, I don’t think that this probably would be happening in the same way,” Aragón said.

Though Moo Deng is of a different species, her likeness has been used in viral memes to capture human experiences, including memes by basketball teams (“Moo Deng energy”), makeup brands (“wear your blush like a baby hippo”) and other fans who see themselves in her.

When she opens her mouth after getting picked up? Lifestyle icon:

When she simply lies down on the ground? That’s us on a Monday:

Moo Deng’s memeification is also likely due to our biological programming to connect with her, Aragón suggests. “The baby schema is probably hooking us … and creating that sort of line of empathy and sympathy,” she said. “Once we’re engaged to that extent, now the memes are coming.”

Dopamine may also be released when we watch videos of Moo Deng playfully biting, sleeping and enjoying a belly rub, said Stephanie Pappas, a licensed marriage and family therapist in California.

“As humans, we all need a break from sitting with the fatigue and overwhelm of our daily lives,” Pappas said. “The joy [Moo Deng] brings is quickly accessible and instantly soothing to our nervous systems and bodies.”

Whether human infants or hippos, babies can inspire strong reactions in us. In a 2015 study in Psychological Science, Aragón and her team found that people who have positive feelings toward cute baby images may also have stronger aggressive expressions of those feelings, like wanting to pinch a baby’s cheek — without any actual intention to harm. (Also known as “cute aggression”).

“Usually it’s this feeling of being sort of overwhelmed by the cuteness, and then you just want to pinch and squeeze and bite,” Aragón said.

In Moo Deng’s case, some visitors are taking their desire to engage with her too far. According to a local news report in Pattaya Mail, the zoo is now urging visitors to avoid throwing objects or causing disturbances to its animals after social media videos of people throwing water and shells on Moo Deng circulated online.

That could be a manifestation of people’s cute aggression, Aragón said: “I want to approach, I want to touch, I want to rile up.”

But fans of Moo Deng should know that she’s going to be more sedentary during the day because pygmy hippos are nocturnal animals. “They’re sleeping during the daytime,” Kruger said. “I put the responsibility on the people to manage it better, because this poor little hippo could be traumatized by all these people who are aggravating her.“

Instead, people should channel their Moo Deng obsession into working to protect her and her species’ future.

Pygmy hippos are an endangered species,” Kruger said. “I’m hoping that this could help us recognize that if we love these animals, we really need to help them survive into the future, and that means preserving their natural environment.”