Moo Deng, or: how memes work

👋 It’s Monday, and we’re back with the Medium Newsletter
Issue #174: fake vulnerability, “publish or perish,” and universal needs
By Harris Sockel

I am an adult human man, yet I feel a fierce kinship with a two-month-old hippopotamus whose name (Moo Deng) translates to “bouncy pork.” She is a thick lump of hippo who somehow expresses the existential weight of being alive in 2024.

Moo’s wildly expressive eyes and mouth have spurred fan art, memes, and a cryptocurrency worth $100 million, somehow. Thailand’s Khao Kheow Zoo, which has chronicled her life on YouTube since the very beginning, understands how rare this all is — they’ve witnessed a 300% increase in visitors on weekends, and they’re working on trademarking our bouncy lil bébé.

Moo rules. But why did she blow up so fast?

A few years ago on Medium, Tomas Pueyo outlined 12 lessons from building a viral app. The context is completely different, but the principles are the same: We share things that help us communicate who we are. Memes that travel furthest take this to another level — they help other people communicate who they are (in the words of Steve Bryant, “write for your audience’s audience”). This is why animals and babies historically rule the internet. Dogs, cats, hippos, and llamas are not political or divisive. They’re blank canvases for our souls. They’re vehicles for storytelling — and people don’t share information or cute imagery, they share stories.

Moo Deng, a tender hippopotamus who is but two months old, is the protagonist of any story you want to tell. She’s you, she’s me, she’s All Of Us wallowing around in the mud just trying to cope. I think that’s worth keeping in mind whenever something moves culture. Next time you want to create something with staying power, consider: How is that image, idea, song, video, or meme helping people express something about themselves they didn’t have the tools to express before?

What else we’re reading

• The word “vulnerability” has saturated our culture to the point where sharing anything remotely personal — even when you know it’ll land well — is “vulnerable.” True vulnerability, as executive coach Ally Sprague explains, risks your reputation in a very real way. Sprague believes most of us substitute fake vulnerability (“something personal”) for real vulnerability (“something you might dislike me for”) — and we’re shortchanging our emotional growth as a result.
• Geoinformatics professor Werner Kuhn says something no other academic is willing to say (at least none I’ve heard): Academia is turning intellectuals into content creators. They’re stacking up articles published in journals no one reads simply so they can keep their jobs. Kuhn quotes Einstein: “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” He argues all humans need the trust and space to confront problems without feeling pressured to immediately solve them.

Your daily dose of practical wisdom

Behind every negative emotion lies an unmet universal need — and to process the emotion, you need to identify and meet the need. Here’s a list of the most common human needs. If you’re feeling not so great and can’t pinpoint why, ask yourself which one (or several) you’re missing:

• Autonomy
• Collaboration
• Consistency
• Clarity
• Integrity
• Recognition
• Respect
• Reassurance
• Security
• Support
• Understanding

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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