The internet’s obsessed with a sad monkey

The story of Punch the macaque.

We can all agree that having parasocial relationships with strangers on the internet is weird. Just because you see someone everyday, hear intimate details of their life, and perhaps even interact with them occasionally, doesn’t mean you KNOW know them.

Sure, most people would interpret that level of intimacy as a relationship. Sure, that sense of loyalty is what helps fund brand deals. But if you feel connected to a stranger on Instagram or TikTok or whatever flavour online tar pit you prefer, you’re a big weird loser with big weird loser energy.

Or so we’ve been told. I’ve never seen much of a problem with it.

If the hallmark of a parasocial relationship is that the affection is one-sided, there are plenty of things in my life which qualify. I’ve been known to get emotionally attached to book characters, house plants, and particularly nice stationery. I’ve felt tremendously invested in the lives of strangers, real and imagined, and find this a fairly normal facet of humanity.

But even I can admit that the emotions I feel towards a sad baby monkey in a Japanese zoo might be a little… intense.

If you’ve avoided this story, good. Click off now. Go and look at the sky, breathe in the last of the summer air, and live in a naive, but happy world where all baby monkeys are loved by their mothers and embraced by their extended monkey families.

For those of you brave enough to stay, the story goes that a macaque named “Punch” – who lives in Japan’s Ichikawa City Zoo – was abandoned by his mother. It’s impossible to say why. Perhaps she wasn’t ready for the pressures of motherhood, or maybe her son was particularly annoying. I try not to judge mothers – monkey or otherwise – and will speculate no further.

Oh God why?

Either way, Punch was left to navigate the intricacies of monkey politics all on his own. Supported by the zoo staff, sure, but not given the love a little baby monkey needs. This might have been a kind of sad, kind of interesting, but otherwise unremarkable story, had the zoo not given Punch a stuffed orangutan toy from Ikea for comfort.

Holy fucking shit it’s so fucking tragic. You have no idea. Oh my God. I could cry thinking about it.

The internet is filled with videos of this sad, abandoned monkey, dragging around its battered maternal substitute, and jumping into its limp arms whenever it’s scared, or chastised by its peers.

Ikea, at least, is having a good time.

That’s something that happens quite a lot. Usually a macaque baby would be protected from the worst of the bullying by its mother, you see. But Punch doesn’t have a mother. It has a toy orangutan. The whole situation is a complete melodrama. It’s like The Notebook, Sophie’s Choice, and The Green Mile had a three-way love child which they then collectively abandoned.

Suddenly, people around the world are incredibly invested in the trials and tribulations of little Punch.

Honestly, the macaque PR team should really step in here. But they seem to be completely unaware of how bad bullying an achingly-cute orphan looks. Give it a few more millennia of evolution, and they’ll likely see the error of their ways. But right now, the greater monkey community are biting and slapping with seemingly no comprehension of the reputational damage they’re causing themselves.

Make it stop.

It’s impossible to know about Punch without being invested in his well being. With all the bad news out there at the moment, we need Punch to be happy.

This wonderfully-measured comment from Reddit sums it up nicely: “I’ve only known Punch for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself”.

Fair.

Having the already-tenuous mental health of thousands, perhaps millions, of people is a lot to ask of one motherless monkey. Especially considering that, for all we know, he is inherently unlovable. We can’t speak macaque. Maybe he’s a racist. Maybe he deserves the occasional beating. There’s a chance we should be trusting the monkeys on this one.

But it doesn’t matter. Everyone wants him to find love and acceptance, but in a manner which somehow also heals our abandonment wounds by proxy.

The ferocity of people’s emotions has clearly spooked the zoo staff. They didn’t precisely ask for people to calm their tits – that’s a bit direct for the Japanese style of communication. Instead they released the following statement:

“Punch has been scolded many times and has learned how to socialise. While Punch is scolded, he shows resilience and mental strength. We would like you to support Punch’s effort rather than feel sorry for him.”

Finding ways to celebrate effort in times of adversity, even when it doesn’t yield results, is a nice sentiment. But trying to get the internet to manage their collective emotions?

They’d be better off trying to reason with the macaques.