Leave the Baby Hippo Alone, Please
Moo Deng, the adorable baby hippo, is simply too viral for her own good. The two-month old pygmy hippo deserves the love but not the rest.
Moo Deng exploded into virality around mid-September, when videos and photos of her amusingly distraught reactions blew up on Twitter and TikTok.
As with all cute viral animals, she is literally me. And you. And everyone.
Because how could you not love her? Moo Deng, whose name translates to "bouncy pig" (or "bouncy pork," depending who you ask), is objectively adorable by anyone's metric.
But some people are not intelligent enough to know to love from afar.
On the one hand, Moo Deng is very likely responsible for an uptick in traffic to her home, Thailand's Khao Kheow Open Zoo.
Zoo director Narongwit Chodchoy told CNN that the baby hippo's inherent cuteness has lured in upwards of 30 percent more guests than usual. So, that's good.
The bad news is that not all of these admirers are benevolent.
“Some tourists behaved inappropriately," Chodchoy said. "One person poured water [on her] while another threw a shell onto Moo Deng when she lay on the floor.”
Evil, simply put. Jail-worthy, even.
'Cuz it's a sad state of affairs when people simply cannot behave around a literal baby.
Yes, Moo Deng is so cute that she only somehow becomes even more adorable when she's upset.
But affecting that 'tude by getting in her space? Extremely vile.
The phenomenon recalls the tourist-wrought destruction occasionally inflicted upon museums and galleries when selfie-crazed fools damage artworks in desperate attempts to get social media content.
Have we not all universally agreed that this is cringe, shameworthy behavior? Sometimes you just gotta log off.
And with all the incredible Moo Deng content coming out of first-hand sources, how could anyone think they're in the right by pushing the baby hippo to perform for the camera?
Truly, they do not deserve the bouncy pig.
