Neil the Seal

About

Neil the Seal is an elephant seal from Tasmania, Australia who's gone viral on TikTok and social media for viral videos of him on land, on the road and engaging in shenanigans with the locals. Neil the Seal originally went viral in 2022. However, videos featuring him in the Tasmanian town of Dunalley went largely viral in December 2023, spreading outside of the Austalian internet and spawning so-called "Neil the Seal TikTok" or "Neil the Seal Tok."

Origin

Videos of Neil the Seal originally went viral in 2022. Currently, the first known video featuring Neil the Seal was posted by TikToker^[1] @bigdaddyofdadjokes on June 30th, 2022, in which Neil is seen playing with traffic cones on a road. The video received over 98,400 plays and 3,700 likes in a year (shown below, left).

Also, TikToker^[10] @sophtopus posted a video on December 14th, 2023 (following his late 2023 virality), in which she alleged that the footage was taken in 2021. She explained that she's a marine biology student who's been studying Neil. The video received over 89,000 plays and 12,200 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Spread

Soon after in 2022, TikToks^[2] featuring Neil surfaced. Then, an Instagram^[3] page was created for Neil on July 1st, 2022, with the first post showing him with a traffic cone (shown below, left). Photos of him continued to surface on the Instagram^[4] going into 2022 (example shown below, right).

In late 2023, a series of viral videos on TikTok made Neil increasingly mainstream. For instance, on November 20th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @jamiefknlee posted a compilation of photos and videos of Neil, gaining roughly 292,100 plays and 41,100 likes in one month (shown below, left).

On December 5th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @listnrnewsroom posted an informational video about Neil, revealing that he's a rare elephant seal who weighs more than 600 kilos. The video received roughly 2.1 million plays and 211,000 likes in nine days (shown below, right).

In December 2023, a TikToker named @jasonhowlett666 started to widely circulate Neil the Seal content, evident in one TikTok^[7] he posted on December 11th, 2023, in which approached Neil on someone's front doorstep, gaining over 10.7 million plays and 1.4 million likes in three days (shown below, left).

Non-Australian TikTokers then started to find so-called "Neil the Seal TikTok" and post content referencing it, such as TikToker^[8] @izzybizzyspider on December 13th, 2023, whose video gained over 284,900 plays and 54,700 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Neil the Seal also gained cross-platform spread in December 2023. For instance, on December 12th, 2023, X^[9] user @toxoplasmosii reposted an @jasonhowlett666 TikTok,^[7] writing, "Apparently the infamous 'Neil the Seal' is still terrorizing the locals of Tasmania," receiving over 11,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Apparently the infamous “Neil the Seal” is still terrorizing the locals of Tasmania pic.twitter.com/nYqMmqEOIE

— renni (@toxoplasmosii) December 12, 2023

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References