Content of the week #9: HIPPOS

I had an embarrassment of riches to choose from this week – it could’ve been Manchester Museum explaining how a Victorian fern craze inspired custard creams, Bodleian Libraries’ restricted section, or Museum in a dead horrible rich guy’s house.

Instead I’ve chosen something that represents social media at its best – something that almost feels like a dying art. It’s Edinburgh Zoo’s new baby pygmy hippo: Haggis.

Now, the obvious thing to do if you’ve got a new baby pygmy hippo is to try and make it a Moo Deng – another baby pygmy hippo born in July 2024 at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo, Thailand.

As it happens, ‘Moo-Deng’ means ‘bouncing pork’, a kind of soup made from ground pork – so naming this new hippo Haggis is on-brand from the start.

The success of Moo Deng was easy – as soon as you saw pictures of her being picked up or sprayed with a hose, she was destined to be a star. Edinburgh Zoo could have done similar – just post the picture of the hippo and let meme nature take its course.

The magic happened when Edinburgh Zoo (and the world) considered the question: is there room in our hearts for two pygmy hippo babies? Or can there be only one?

We all know the easiest route to engagement is by provoking controversy, and Edinburgh Zoo stoked the fire by introducing Haggis with “Moo deng? Who deng? Introducing…Haggis 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿”.

This predictably set off people saying we shouldn’t be pitting women against each other – some were in on the joke, other people took it too seriously, and some of them were Radio 1 DJs.

This all led to other people making their own memes, follow-up posts taking the piss out of screenshoted-Notes-App-apologies and regular Haggis updates.

I say this is an almost anachronistic throwback to when social media was at its best because, very simply, it is social. It’s a conversation with audiences, it’s reacting in real time and it’s giving the people what they want.

We can’t all be as lucky to have baby pygmy hippos being born onsite (there are ethical considerations), but we can all be prepared for when something happens that we know in our guts could play well online:

• Read the room. If what you’re posting about ties into a pre-existing meme or trend, how can you build on it rather than just copy it?
• Be prepared to engage. It doesn’t matter what platform you’re on, you should be responding to comments when something big kicks off.
• Keep reacting. Just because you’ve had a Hit Post it doesn’t mean you should take your hands off the wheel – keep building on the post with new and re-shared content.
• Have a baby pygmy hippo.

The only thing I think is missing in this campaign is crap imagery. The charm of Moo Deng is the blurry candid shots of them being hosed and going about their business, which ties into naff internet culture. So get an old smartphone, put it in a shaky hand and get us some crap pictures Edinburgh Zoo.

What else I’m thinking about

I guess it’s the never-ending debate of whether to leave Twitter. I suffer from sunken cost fallacy – I’ve spent over a decade on Twitter, built half my career off it, met tons of new people and completely destroyed my mental health.

For some reason the thought of setting up shop elsewhere gives me an existential crisis – or at least an existential crisis for my online self. In my mind the purpose of being on TikTok is to become a content creator; Instagram is basically just Reels, i.e. a meme factory; LinkedIn is where you sell your soul; Facebook is pointless. So if we’re looking for a Twitter alternative, what is its purpose?

For me, Twitter’s always been the place of community and opinion. It’s where you actually chat with people and keep up to date, rather than watching video after fucking video until you go to sleep. The idea of leaving Twitter to just set up shop in another evil billionaire’s house (Threads) makes me feel ill, so I’m going to see if that community is on Bluesky instead.

But I’ll still be popping into Twitter because I have no moral compass.