interviews
The Creator Of The ‘Awkward Look Monkey Puppet’ Meme Reveals The True Origins Of His Creation
he origins of a renowned meme format are usually pretty easy to track down, but sometimes, the true creator can remain hidden in the shadows for years. This was the case with the “Awkward Look Monkey Puppet” meme, a derivative of the Monkey Puppet known as Kenta from the Japanese children's television show Ōkiku Naru Ko, until just recently.
After circulating the web since 2016 in Spanish meme communities before exploding even further into English internet circles, Awkward Look Monkey Puppet’s true creator finally decided to step into the light and reveal the origin story of his iconic meme. We sat down with Dani Flores, a musician and content creator based in Peru, to determine the legitimacy of his claim after he reached out to set the record straight. So, if you’ve ever been curious where this meme really came from, here’s the untold truth from the original creator himself.
Q: Hey, Daniel. Thanks for sitting down with us to discuss the Awkward Look Monkey Puppet meme. Start us off with a quick intro to let everyone know who you are?
A: Hello, my name is Daniel Flores, and I am a 25-year-old musician and content creator from Peru. To the surprise of my friends, I am the creator of the Awkard Look Monkey Puppet meme.
Q: So could you explain what the “Awkward Look Monkey Puppet” meme is and how it’s used?
A: Ok, the "Awkward Look Monkey Puppet" meme is basically the face of a puppet from an old Japanese TV show, which has been edited to look like it is looking, embarrassed, to the side. This meme is used to portray uncomfortable situations but in which the protagonist is usually hiding something.
Q: Alright, so diving into the full origin of Awkward Look Monkey Puppet, can you give us the backstory of how and why you came up with the meme? When and where did you first create it?
A: Well, to put ourselves in context, it is necessary to mention that before creating the meme, I had a little past as a creator of comic vignettes back in 2013. Vignettes that I drew and published on a Facebook page and other platforms such as Taringa under the nickname "Ayax Lein." I was doing well, people liked my content, and it was shared on large pages with quite a few followers, however, for various reasons, I stopped doing it.
So in 2016, as a college student, I discovered the original Monkey Puppet meme and I loved it. As you know, of the monkey, there were many faces. So remembering that past as a creator of cartoons, I decided to do something similar but this time for a smaller group of people (for my university colleagues) as a form of personal entertainment.
In this way, I embarked on the adventure of getting more faces of that monkey, to build stories. I discovered that the chapters were on YouTube since the program was being broadcast on national television in Peru and a user was recording them. I started to watch the chapters and began to take screenshots of different expressions. I got several, and I used them to create different comic vignettes that I was publishing.
However, it was my third cartoon that gave birth to Awkward Look Monkey Puppet. In this vignette, I wanted to represent a person who was discovered by his "crush" while he was watching. But when designing it, I realized that the fact that the character turned his face was not enough to be funny, it was necessary for the character to return the view "secretly," because it is a very human action with which we identify. That's what makes it funny, that was the "punchline" that turned it into a joke. Because we all know that that "hidden" look ends up giving us away even more, and in the monkey, with his neutral puppet face, it was even funnier.
But there was a slight drawback, and that is that the monkey, as a puppet, only looked straight ahead, so what I did was just go to Photoshop and edit the eyes. A simple edit, duplicating the layer, erasing the eyes with the clone stamp and redrawing them with a brush.
With the cartoon finished, on May 5th, 2016, I published it that same day in a group at my university called "Which professor from la Ulima should I enroll with?" and quickly exploded into likes. The rest is history.
Q: When you first created a meme using the scene from the Japanese children's television show Ōkiku Naru Ko, what did you make of the meme? Did you have any initial expectations as far as if it would be an immediate hit online?
A: Honestly, it would never have crossed my mind that it became such a famous meme. It's unthinkable for anyone who does this kind of thing. And I say this thinking about how far it has really come. Who could imagine such a thing? Even up to now, it is still difficult for me to process.
However, if I can affirm that my initial expectations were that the cartoon, and only the cartoon, would be a small hit and would receive great acceptance in the group where I published it and could be shared on large pages. But all this, given my past as a creator that I mentioned before, where it had already happened to me. For that reason, I did not doubt that it could happen, considering that I thought it had potential.
And it happened, the cartoon was very well received in the group, with about 600-plus likes at that time. Which, of course, for a group of a few thousand people (which was not even made for memes but to talk about other things), for me, it was a lot. By crawling the image on Google, I can see that the vignette was indeed shared on other pages or accounts with many, many followers, so yes, I can say that my initial expectations were met. But just that, everything else, I never imagined.
Q: After that initial period, it spread to Twitter and Facebook and was used in numerous memes during summer 2016 before becoming widespread by August/September. When did you first see another meme using the monkey puppet and notice it was going viral? How’d you react to that?
A: That's a question I couldn't answer with certainty, because I don't really remember it, and it's because it's been a process. I imagine that the first variants I met were on Facebook because Twitter did not use it. I have vague memories of thinking "oh that's my monkey" with surprise and joy, but nothing accurate. However, I do remember that at some point I thought, "Ok, this is going too far!" but with a strangeness that remains to this day. In the sense that you know that it is real, that it is happening, but who has any idea that you created it? What are you going to do? Not really much. And even more, who will believe you? Then you just let it go, because it is in the hands of the world, not yours anymore.
Q: Seeing how you made this meme, we assume you must’ve been fairly savvy with memes and internet culture already, but what was your knowledge of memes at the time your own creation?
A: I have been a fanatic and faithful follower of memes since Rage Comics, which, at least in Latin America, were the first to be called with that "term" [meme] in a massive way, so I somehow considered them "origins." I was in high school back then, and memes were kind of a "geek" thing, not everyone knew about them, but eventually, they became super popular and accepted.
So yes, I love memes, and at that time I was very aware of those who inhabited the Spanish-speaking community because, as you know, not all communities share the same memes. In that sense, I think that the first faces of Monkey Puppet had their origin in Latin America because their sentences were in Spanish (and misspelled on purpose, something we do out of grace). The fact that his first captures have the logo of the channel "TV Peru" makes me think that perhaps, the general meme and not just mine, was born here in Peru.
Q: So once Awkward Look Monkey Puppet became a well-known meme, did you tell any of your friends or family about your involvement in creating it? How’d they respond?
A: Yes, I did, but little by little. I remember mentioning it to some close friends first, but without going too deep into the subject, I simply trusted that they believed me even though deep down I wasn't sure if they did 100 percent. It also becomes strange to talk about that aspect. Saying, "Hey, I invented that," makes me feel like someone who lies because, being honest, if a friend comes and says something like that, my first reaction will be skepticism.
Then, I mentioned it to my family a couple of years ago, and I remember the occasion. My parents didn't really understand much about it, but from how I told them and my sister's reaction (who did know the meme), they were surprised. No more was said about the subject, yes, similar to what happened with my friends. Because, again, what else could you say?
It wasn't until this year that I decided to discuss it publicly with my friends through my WhatsApp and Instagram stories, because it's as if, out of nowhere, I had woken up from a dream and realized how incredibly far the meme had come. Now, with my growing YouTube channel, I had an audience that could listen to me and to whom I could prove it. And in this decision, you were decisive, because I suddenly discovered that the meme had its own article! The idea that I could contact you and thus prove my authorship came to mind, so in the end, I could tell everyone because there was an official way to prove it.
By the time this is published, I made the matter public in the group at my university where I made the first publication of the meme, and their reaction has been incredible! Thousands of reactions and hundreds of comments. They are thrilled with the fact that the university and our Facebook group have had a place in the history of memes, and that a colleague of theirs is the creator. It's amazing, and it makes me happy.
Q: Since Awkward Look Monkey Puppet is still frequently used all these years later when other memes die off in mere days, looking back on your creation, did you ever expect it to become such a long-lasting format?
A: If the fact that it became a meme shocks me, the fact that it’s lasted so long surprises me even more. However, it actually makes sense and I get it. The meme itself is widely applicable to an endless number of situations because "shame" is something we always experience at some point. Also, it has no language, it is a facial expression, so it is universal. If we add to that that the character is funny and memorable (and particularly strange), then yes, it makes sense that it’s lasted this long.
Q: Among the many thousands of Awkward Look Monkey Puppet memes now circulating the web, which ones or types are your favorites? Do you still use the format yourself?
A: Of all the monkey puppet faces, my favorite is probably the first one I met, the "Komo lo zupo." This face has its mini variants as well, but I would say that this is my favorite. I love mine, of course, and I sometimes use it as a sticker on WhatsApp (now that I have it). But my face wouldn't exist if it weren't for those first expressions that went viral, so yeah, my favorite is the one I mentioned.
Q: What about other memes in general? Do you have an all-time favorite or perhaps a recent meme format that you love at the moment?
A: My current favorite meme is Swole Doge vs. Cheems in which Doge appears as a muscular dog compared to a weak Cheems. It lends itself to a lot of funny situations. For that reason, I would say that the Doge meme, in general, is my favorite, since that's where the one I mention was born, as well as Dogecoin, which I think has a very cool culture and fanbase. To the moon!
Q: Good taste, Doge is my favorite too. Alright, before we go, we have one last question. Since you created the Awkward Look Monkey Puppet meme, how do you hope it’s remembered in the halls of meme culture in the years to come? Any dreams for your contribution to meme culture?
A: I would like it to be remembered as something that made many people happy around the world. Nothing more than that. I really couldn't ask for more because, after all, I think that's the purpose of memes — to make us laugh, especially in those bad days or moments that we all experience. Of course, it is great that memes can be used to share important, critical messages, as art does, but in the first instance, it is enough for me that it brings a smile to people.
For my part, the surprise and feeling that I get from knowing that I have been the creator of something like this, seeing my name there, is indescribable, a mixture of feelings, positive, without a doubt. It gives me confidence that I can achieve interesting things, things that people really like, because that is what I want to dedicate my life to, to be a creator.
Q: Thanks again. Wanna add any closing words?
A: Yes! And this is something that I plan to share in an upcoming video telling the story. There is something extremely valuable that I rescue from all this matter, and it is that:
Never, for any reason, underestimate an idea of yours that you think is good.
The world is already prepared for it, to tell you how bad it is going to end, and that is exactly the reason why you must be the first to stop and defend it. If you do not do it? Who else?
And no, it is not cliché, it is logical. Look how something so simple, so basic, like an embarrassed monkey looking to the side, has gone incredibly far. That was born from a simple cartoon that only had the intention of making some people laugh. If, at that moment, I had thought, "No, this is not going to work. No one is going to laugh at this," if I had sabotaged myself, this would never have happened, and that meme would never have existed. We wouldn't even be having this conversation.
I trusted my idea and defended it by publishing it, and thanks to that, the world decided to defend it as well. So please, never underestimate yourself.
You can follow me on YouTube as "Dani Villa," I am an indie pop musician, and I have just published a new song that begins a fictional universe that plans to be told through other songs, independent, but interrelated with each other. It all starts with "The Journey of the Time Traveler" (that's the name of the first song). Likewise, I have started uploading videos with personal thoughts and themes related to art that I think is important to have in order to function in that world and not fail in the attempt. Thank you very much to all!
Daniel Flores is a musician and content creator based in Peru who created Awkward Look Monkey Puppet, which became the subject of memes in 2016 and beyond. To keep up with Flores, you can follow him on Instagram and Facebook, or check out his YouTube channel for more of his music and other content.
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