The celebrity of Moo Deng fades but makes it possible to alert the fate of its species, today threatened in its natural habitat of West Africa.
A birthday celebrated in Mondovision. The baby pygmy hippopotamus with millions of views on social networks, Moo Deng, blew its first candle on Thursday in a zoo in Thailand, of which he remains Ambassador N.1 of the “Soft Power”.
The Khao Kheow zoo has programmed a series of events to the glory of its star animal, including a parade, a round table of influencers, an auction and, obviously, a cake. A manager of a Thai brand of cosmetic products spent 100,000 baht (2,600 euros) to sponsor what the female mammal, famous for its gluttony, should swallow three movements in two stages.
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Thursday being a holiday in Thailand, on the occasion of a Buddhist party, a crowd was expected in front of its enclosure, halfway between the capital Bangkok and the seaside resort of Pattaya.
Faceties and grimaces
Moo Deng conquered the Internet with its Diva jokes and cute grimaces. Millions of people have watched the whims of the baby pygmy hippopotamus, biting guards, taking a bath, or resting with his mother.
The zoo that houses it said in September that it has quadrupled the number of tickets sold in one year. Moo Deng fever (“leaping pork” in Thai) has also been available in a wide range of derivative products.
She also lent herself to the game of predictions, a classic of animals known on the Internet, with a certain Flair: she predicted Donald Trump’s victory in the American elections in November.
Decrease popularity
Today, Thailand continues to cherish its most famous mascot, and the United States Embassy gave it a plush to its effigy on the occasion of the American national holiday on July 4.
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But at a year, Moo Deng is no longer the Joufflu baby who melted the hearts of Internet users. At the end of June, she weighed 93 kilos, the triple that eight months ago, according to the zoo. The digital watch company Meltwater wondered in November if the trend was “finished”.
At the end of September, his name was mentioned online more than 200,000 times in a day, under the effect of a sketch of the famous American show Saturday Night Live, in which an actor has disguised in Moo Deng. More than a month later, the figure fell to 34,000, according to their study.
“Moo Deng became viral very quickly after birth, and perhaps it is no longer as much”estimates Joshua Paul Dale, professor specialist in “kawaii” (“cute” in Japanese) at Chuo University in Japan.
“Part of our appreciation of what is cute is linked to the fact that we know that it will not last long”he develops. “If something is super cute, you have to take advantage of it now, because it will not last forever.”
Endangered species
The celebrity of Moo Deng also made it possible to alert the opinion of the fate of its species, threatened with extinction. Pygmy hippopotamus lives in the forests and swamps of West Africa, and prefers the earthly environment rather than the aquatic, unlike its cousin the common, more imposing hippopotamus.
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It would remain between 2,000 and 2,500 in the wild, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In video – Thailand: Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippopotamus that makes the buzz on social networks
