Silly Baby Seal With Tongue Out / Ponsuke-kun

About

Silly Baby Seal With Tongue Out, also known as Smiling And Winking Baby Seal, is a viral video of a Japanese baby seal named Ponsuke-kun, or ポンすけくん, smiling, winking and sticking his tongue out at the camera in a cute and wholesome manner. The original video was posted on Instagram by @tokkaricenter_official in mid-2022 and earned attention and memes on platforms like Twitter and Reddit in the following months. The video is similar to the crying seal who was forced to eat cement when he was six meme and Ponsuke-kun was compared to the BLEHHHHH :P Cat and other silly cats in memes about being silly. On May 4th, 2023, The Instagram page @tokkaricenter_official shared news that Ponsuke-kun had passed away. Ponsuke-kun's death was mourned by many online.

Origin

On May 30th, 2022, the Instagram^[1] account tokkaricenter_official, being the official account of the Okhotsk Tokkari Center (オホーツクとっかりセンタ), or "Seal Land," in Mombetsu, Japan, posted a video showing one of their seals named Ponsuke-kun (ポンすけくん) smiling, winking and sticking his tongue out. According to the video's description, he'd just eaten some rice and was preparing for a nap. Over the course of 11 days, the video received roughly 14.8 million plays and 2.3 million likes (shown below).

Spread

Later in the day on May 30th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user Shbloing reposted the video in a tweet that received roughly 9.5 million views and 423,300 likes in 11 days. Additionally, they captioned the video, "😌😛," subsequently relating Ponsuke-kun's facial expression to emojis.

Inspired by Shbloing's tweet, multiple Twitter users started to reply and post quote retweets that turned the baby seal video into a meme and image macro. For instance, on May 30th, Twitter^[3] user @andolynparrish captioned the screenshot of Ponsuke-kun with his tongue out, "Me walking past a mirror while crying," earning roughly 3,000 likes in 11 days (shown below, left). On May 31st, 2022, Twitter^[4] user @awholeassmood photoshopped hands doing "peace signs" and Hello Kitty hairclips onto Ponsuke-kun, earning roughly 2,000 likes in ten days (shown below, right).

On May 31st, 2022, the video was shared on Reddit^[5] in /r/AnimalsBeingDerps by Redditor /u/westcoastcdn19, earning roughly 35,500 upvotes in 11 days. The next day, on June 1st, 2022, the video was reshared to Reddit's /r/aww^[6] by Redditor tamilvanan31, earning roughly 53,900 upvotes in nine days.

More memes surfaced using the baby seal video going into June 2022. For instance, on June 8th, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @avantgodjazz posted a parody "Now That" video which labeled Ponsuke-ku the seal as a seal who loves to murder. The video received roughly 29,500 views and 3,900 likes in two days (shown below).

pic.twitter.com/6W3nq63m4Y

— ryan gosling official (@avantgodjazz) June 9, 2022

Ponsuke-kun's Death

On May 4th, 2023, the Instagram^[8] account of @tokkaricenter_official posted a carousel of Ponsuke-kun photos with a long-form caption that claimed Ponsuke-kun had passed away earlier that day. The account's admin wrote in the description, "Thank you Pon-chan. I love you so much," among other statements. In less than a day, the post gained roughly 19,800 likes (shown below).

In the days that followed the announcement, users on Instagram expressed their sadness over Ponsuke-kun's passing. For instance, on May 4th, 2023, Instagram^[9] user @nectarplasm posted a video of this nature, gaining over 330 likes in less than a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References