I have this habit of mindlessly scrolling through reels, not really looking for anything, just letting the algorithm decide what my brain should consume before bed.

For the past few days, a helpless baby monkey and a penguin were constantly flashing on my phone. 

The baby monkey was sitting quietly, clutching a small stuffed toy to its chest. Not playing with it, not throwing it around. Just… holding it. The way you hold something you’re afraid of losing.

The second was a penguin. Walking alone, away from its colony, away from the ocean, toward the mountains. Waddling calmly in completely the wrong direction, as if it had made up its mind about something and wasn’t looking back.

I watched both videos more than once. And then I put my phone down and just sat with a strange, quiet feeling I couldn’t quite name.

Because something about those two clips felt like more than just animals doing weird things. It felt like something I recognised. Something uncomfortably close to human. And there’s a side that says, maybe it’s not that deep. These two animals might have had something in their minds, while they both do not have any idea that their actions doing so much to the humans. You know, just like how we humans sometimes see the deep meaning behind a banana pasted on a wall. 

However, still, this topic needs to be discussed. So let me give you a bit of context on both.

The first video is part of what the internet calls the “Punch the Monkey” trend. It’s a baby monkey, often very young, placed in a human-like setting. In this particular clip that caught my attention, the little one was just holding a stuffed toy tightly, not interacting with anyone, not performing for the camera. Just clutching it like it was the only familiar thing in the room.

The internet says that Punch thought that toy was his mother or friend. Still, this is a bitter truth for those who think animals don’t have emotions.

The second one has been floating around wildlife circles for a while now. A penguin, part of a colony in Antarctica, suddenly breaks away from the group and starts walking inland. Not toward the ocean, but toward the mountains, which in penguin terms means toward nothing. Scientists and wildlife observers who’ve documented this call it a death march because that’s, very simply, what it is. The penguin won’t survive. Maybe the penguin knows that very well, and yet it walks with this unhurried certainty.

Two completely different animals. Two completely different situations.

Both quietly impossible to forget.

And of course, brands showed up. They always do.

The penguin went first. Indian brands from food delivery to tech, jumped on the Nihilist Penguin trend using that lone waddling bird to talk about everything. The format was simple, penguin walking away, brand message slapped on top. Relatable, low effort, high engagement. Someone in a marketing meeting somewhere absolutely called it “very on brand for us” without a hint of irony.

Then Punch arrived, and things got a little more creative.

Haldiram’s combined both trends into one creative, showing the penguin and the baby monkey walking together toward a Haldiram’s outlet, with the caption “a hand to hold and comfort food to share.” Honestly? Annoying how well that worked.

Which is either really beautiful or really calculated. Probably both.

Tomorrow there will be another video. Something else will stop us mid-scroll, make us watch it twice, and sit with us a little longer than expected. The internet moves fast and our feeds are always ready with the next thing.

But I keep thinking about those two. A small monkey holding onto something for comfort. A penguin quietly walking its own way.

We called them viral. We made them memes. Brands put their logos next to them and moved on.

But maybe, for just a moment before all of that happened, we paused because something in those clips felt honest. It felt familiar.