FRIDAY MEME: IKEA MONKEY

About

IKEA Monkey is the nickname given to a Japanese snow macaque named Darwin that was found loose wearing a coat at a Canadian IKEA store in December of 2012.

Origin

Twitter user Bronwyn Iler Page tweeted a photograph of a Japanese snow macaque monkey wearing a shearling coat at an IKEA store in Toronto, Canada on December 9th, 2012. Within three days, the tweet received over 415 retweets and 158 favorites.

Bronwyn Iler Page@broniewyn

Umm saw a monkey in the #ikea parking lot.

The same day, Twitter user Lisa Lin tweeted a new photograph of the same monkey standing in front of a window at IKEA, receiving over 120 retweets and 40 favorites within the next three days.

Lisa Lin@dzd_lisa

Anyone lose their monkey at Ikea?

Spread

As the photograph of the monkey began spreading online, the @Ikea_Monkey novelty Twitter account was created, which posted tweets from the perspective of the juvenile macaque.

Ikea Monkey@Ikea_Monkey

What's all the fuss about? #ikea

That same day, Gawker^[1] published an article titled “Shearling Coat-Wearing Monkey Found Wandering Around Canadian Ikea,” which reported that the monkey was roaming the store for an hour before animal control arrived. The article was later updated to include tweets from Tom Podolec of CTV News, who reported that the six-month-old macaque would not be returned to its owners.

Tom Podolec CTV News@TomPodolec

Owners of #IkeaMonkey came forward; charged with having a prohibited animal; $240 fine. Will not get monkey back. #Toronto #Ikea

Tom Podolec CTV News@TomPodolec

#IkeaMonkey is a Rhesus Macaque Monkey Approx. 7 months old. In good health; stressed. Jacket is wool and said to be his favourite.

On December 10th, Redditor toucher submitted Bronwyn Page’s photograph of the monkey to the /r/WTF^[6] subreddit, where it received over 18,700 up votes and 440 comments within 24 hours.

The same day, Redditor go4 submitted a post titled “IKEA Monkey Explanation” to the /r/funny^[2] subreddit, which featured an I Should Buy a Boat Cat image macro with the caption “I was supposed to pick up Carl” above Lisa Lin’s photograph of the IKEA monkey (shown below). Within 24 hours, the post received over 30,400 up votes and 350 comments