Moo Deng: Star still shines brightly as pink-cheeked, zany internet phenom turns 1

Straits Times

09-07-2025

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Moo Deng, a pygmy hippo, was born on July 10 last year, at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand.
Moo Deng, the pygmy hippo that stole the internet's heart with her pink cheeks and zany antics, is marking her first birthday on July 10 with a celebration fit for a princess.
The Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand – Moo Deng Central – is lining up a four-day extravaganza for its resident diva.
The birthday bash will kick off on July 10, with a fan paying 100,000 baht (S$3,900) for a huge birthday cake – money that will go to a wildlife conservation fund.
The zoo is giving children 12 years old and younger free entry.
There will be a photo exhibit that traces Moo Deng's rise from an unknown pachyderm into an internet mega-celebrity.
There will be mascot parades, an exclusive auction of Moo Deng memorabilia, and a meet-and-greet with Thailand's animal-loving celebrities and influencers.
For kids, there will be a drawing and clay-modelling corner, and lots of games.
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There will, of course, be the Moo Deng-approved merchandise: plush toys, T-shirts, bags, hats and other collectibles.
Even diplomatic missions are joining in the fun. The US embassy in Bangkok has sent a hippopotamus plush toy named Sammy as a birthday gift.
Now a toddler, Moo Deng is no longer a bouncy potato. She is more like a trotty burrito now: less plump and with legs that are a bit longer.
But she still has those pink cheeks and moist sheen, and that chaotic, sassy and defiant personality that has made her one of the world's most famous creatures ever.
She still yawns, snuffles and likes to nap.
If she's not in the pool, she spends a lot of time dozing in a shaded nook, stretched out like a plump sausage abandoned after a boisterous picnic.
It has certainly been a very busy, intense year for her.
Moo Deng – which means 'bouncy pork' in Thai – shot to internet virality just days after she was born on July 10, 2024, at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand's southern Chonburi province, more than two hours from Bangkok by car.
Her keeper, Mr Atthapon Nundee, had been posting videos of her on his Facebook and TikTok accounts, as well as on the zoo's social media accounts.
Soon, everyone was seeing and sharing the videos, and Moo Deng has since been everywhere.
She's everywhere
Saturday Night Live featured her in a sketch in September 2024 that has been viewed over two million times on YouTube.
In November 2024, Moo Deng was asked to predict the outcome of the US presidential election, and she correctly guessed – by picking from two fruit and veggie cakes – that the winner would be the Republican nominee Donald Trump over Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Google graced her with a doodle, befitting one of the most searched terms of 2024.
A Thai music company produced a
50-second, trance-inducing ditty that plays at an aerobic 145 beats per minute, with babyish lyrics like 'Moo Deng Moo Deng, deng, deng, deng' and 'Moo Deng Moo Deng, boing, boing'.
In February, actors Sam Nivola and Sarah Catherine Hook, who headlined the latest season of the
HBO series
The
White Lotus , set in Koh Samui, Thailand, dropped by the zoo to get a glimpse of a fellow celebrity with more star wattage than the two of them combined.
All that attention has, of course, been a gold mine for the Khao Kheow Open Zoo.
In the last three months of 2024, it tripled its number of visitors to nearly 600,000 people.
Mr Narongwit Chodchoy, the zoo's director, has quickly monetised the park's star occupant.
He has arranged endorsement deals from an online marketplace and a telecoms company. Wire sculptures of hippos decorate the zoo entrance. There is Moo Deng ice cream and Moo Deng moo deng at the canteen.
Something good
But what cannot be monetised is how much joy Moo Deng is bringing to a world that seems to be always on the cusp of a breakdown.
Her livestream on YouTube still provides her online fans a way to get through a particularly rough patch of their day.
In February, a six-year-old Thai boy with terminal cancer went to the zoo to see Moo Deng. It was his final wish.
The zoo's staff went out of their way to make sure the day would be a great one for the boy, nicknamed Auto.
They cleared the crowd around Moo Deng's enclosure, so Auto could have an unimpeded view of the hippo star.
Moo Deng, usually submerged in her pool at that time of the day with just her eyes and nostrils peeking above water, uncharacteristically made herself available for Auto, staying out beside her mother till the boy left.
The boy died on June 2.
The zoo's staff said in a Facebook post that they believe that the day he was with Moo Deng, Auto 'was so happy'.
'That day was so much fun,' they said.