If you haven’t heard of Pesto the penguin and Moo Deng the hippo, then you must be living under a rock. These two celebrity animals have been taking the internet by storm and have been building themselves huge fan bases — which they’re not even aware of.
Pesto is a king penguin who resides at the SEA LIFE Melbourne Aquarium in Melbourne, Australia. He hatched on Jan 30, 2024 to his foster parents, Tango and Hudson. He quickly rose to fame for being unusually big for his age — which earned him nicknames like “fatty” and “unit.”
Weighing 1.1 pounds at birth — much more than average newborn kings — now, at just nine months old, he amasses a whopping 49 pounds. Adult king penguins usually weigh from about 21 to 40 pounds. Pesto grew to be larger than both of his foster parents combined. According to SEA LIFE, this is due to his diet of 25 fish a day and the fact that his biological dad is one of their biggest penguins — plus his foster parents take great care of him. Pesto is the biggest penguin chick the aquarium has ever seen. He’s expected to lose weight once he fledges, a process where a bird develops wing feathers large enough to fly.
Pesto is especially popular on TikTok where users are creating edits of him. He has even gained the attention of celebrities like Katy Perry and Olivia Rodrigo. Pesto got a visit from Perry — who was in Melbourne for her performance at the 2024 Australian Football League Grand Final. On her Guts world tour stop in Melbourne, Rodrigo also paid a visit to Pesto. In Portland, we have a giant cutout of Pesto at the Oregon Zoo created by local artist Mike Bennett.
Moo Deng is a pygmy hippopotamus who resides at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand. She was born on July 10, 2024, to her parents, Tony and Jonah. She has quite a big family with two full siblings named Nadet and Moo Tun, and four half-siblings named Ko, Kanya, Phalo, and Moo Wan. Her name, “Moo Deng” was chosen through a public poll which had over 20,000 voters; the name translates to “bouncy pig.”
Moo Deng gained fame due to her playful and mischievous personality. She loves to bite her caretaker’s knees, scream, take baths, and be near her mom. Eve Thompson, a Franklin sophomore, says, “I think that animals are what touches everyone’s soft side, and so, when you have a screaming hippo, it’s designed to earn popularity.” Moo Deng has become the star of the zoo — with the zoo opting to create merch for her fans, who have doubled the zoo’s attendance as of September 2024. She’s now become the latest muse for the internet — with companies creating lifelike cakes of her and people trying to recreate the “Moo Deng makeup” look, which led to Sephora Thailand posting a makeup guide for her on social media.
“Moo Deng makeup” was started by content creator Mei Pang, who has 3.9 million followers on TikTok. In the video that started it all, Pang says, “Makeup inspired by the legend herself, Moo Deng. Why do you ask? Because she has everything. She has dewy skin, a great halo eye, and a zest for life.” The look involves dewiness, heavy blush, and gray eyeshadow.
On Sept. 28, 2024, a Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch was released where Moo Deng — played by Bowen Yang — talked about the struggles of fame and becoming a viral sensation. Later in the skit, co-star Colin Jost compared this to Chappell Roan’s experiences with the fame she had recently shared with the world. The singer had recently faced backlash for expressing that she doesn’t want to take photos with or hug fans when not on the job.
Fame does come with a price. Some visitors of the Khao Kheow Open Zoo harassed Moo Deng by splashing her with water or throwing objects such as bananas and shellfish, at her. Due to this, the zoo started enforcing strict rules surrounding Moo Deng and has threatened legal action against visitors who aren’t respectful to the hippo.
Even with the downsides, people will go to crazy heights to achieve fame. A zoo in China is being accused of purposefully fattening up their animals in order to create another viral phenomenon like Pesto and Moo Deng. Panzhihua Park Zoo claims that they have tried putting the animals on diets to influence weight loss but that the animals refused to eat less. Thompson says, “Obesity in animals is no joke. It makes them live out their lives in pain and can cause more complications later in life.”
When we aren’t worrying about zoos exploiting animals and people bullying animals, we can appreciate the cute baby animals that are adding a little joy to the internet and our lives. Pesto and Moo Deng have definitely made the world more fun lately — letting us distract ourselves from stressful world events and homework.
