IKEA DJUNGELSKOG Bear

About

The IKEA DJUNGELSKOG Bear, known officially as DJUNGELSKOG, refers to a large stuffed brown bear sold by Swedish furniture store IKEA. Similar to the BLÅHAJ Shark, the DJUNGELSKOG bear gained popularity and fandom online, following its release in 2018 and its U.S. release in 2023.

Origin

In April 2018, IKEA's DJUNGELSKOG line of children's furniture was released in European stores, including stuffed animals like a lion, panda bear and monkey.^[1][2] The DJUNGELSKOG brown bear was released a few months later in August 2018 (images shown below).^[3]

The plush toy first received attention on February 19th, 2019, when Twitter / X^[4] user @Hiroshark tweeted photos of the DJUNGELSKOG bear, writing, "gotta get to IKEA to buy only the essentials," receiving over 11,000 likes in five years (shown below).

At the time, the DJUNGELSKOG bear was not available in the U.S.^[5]

Spread

On May 16th, 2020, X^[6] user @anhdangerous tweeted a photo of the DJUNGELSKOG bear, captioned, "Thinking about…..Djungelskog bear," receiving over 117,000 likes in four years (shown below, left). On June 20th, 2020, X^[7] user @stargazeridiot tweeted, "i dont want a man i just want a djungelskog," gaining over 434,700 likes in a year (shown below, right).

U.S. Release

On August 8th, 2020, a Change.org^[8] petition was created by user Alexander F. called "Bring Djungelskog bear to IKEAs in the USA." The petition received 296 out of 500 desired signatures. In July 2023, the DJUNGELSKOG bear was officially released in American IKEA stores.^[9]

Popularity

From 2023 onward, viral posts from American internet users about the DJUNGELSKOG bear surfaced en masse. For instance, on July 7th, 2023, TikToker ^[10] @insomni_acc posted a video, joking about how she paid $50 for the DJUNGELSKOG bear, gaining over 452,300 plays and 18,500 likes in 10 months (shown below, left).

On September 13th, 2023, TikToker^[11] @oliviakrokrivia posted a video in which she made her DJUNGELSKOG bear dance, receiving over 7.9 million plays and 1.3 million likes in nine months (shown below, right).

Fan art of the DJUNGELSKOG bear surfaced on Tumblr in 2024, such as a post shared by Tumblr^[12] user bunoops on March 18th, 2024, gaining over 1,400 notes in two months (shown below, left).

On April 2nd, 2024, Tumblr^[13] user nicomoon69 shared fan art of two characters each holding a DJUNGELSKOG bear and BLÅHAJ shark, gaining over 430 notes in a month (shown below, right).

Viral memes and posts about the mini DJUNGELSKOG bear also surfaced in 2024, evident in a post shared by X^[14] user @gaykerboy on March 30th, 2024, who wrote, "Did I go to IKEA specially to get the baby djungelskog, uh of course I did," receiving over 6,800 likes in two months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References