Over the past two days you must have seen the meme of a monkey holding a phone at least once. The meme went viral on Egyptian social media with different quotes on it to describe action in various daily situations.
Surprisingly, the viral meme of a baboon, from the monkeys' family, holding a phone and doing some office stuff is not recently created. However, it dates back to 2003 where the footage was created by Hart Productions, the San Francisco-based husband-and-wife team.
Times in which the meme went viral
In 2010, the footage received considerable attention from a large audience after it made an appearance in a scene of the American movie "Dinner with Schmucks". Back at that time it also became the talk of the town.
The scene received publicity again in 2015 in the form of viral on twitter. Users added quotes to the GIF or short video of baboons to describe sarcastic incidents.
Then it became viral recently in Egypt in 2021, after 18 years of shooting. Egyptians written Arabic quotes on the meme to reflect on their daily lives.
The story behind the original footage
According to Vikki Hart, the footage was created to target and appeal to customers who wanted to make their business's more interesting. There was no expectation back in 2003 that the scene of baboons will get viral on social media every now and then even after about 20 years.
The footage was part of a series, the Harts were shooting parts of in San Francisco when G.K told Vikki that it would be a good idea if they can take the same stock photos but with animals instead of people. Afterwards, they came up with the baboon idea and contacted a trainer.
The process of preparation took two months until baboons were trained to undergo shooting. The Harts in statements to "Quartz" in 2015 that the work with monkey was much more easier and enjoyable than it is with humans.
The series included other scenes than the viral one where there was a scene when the baboon ate money and another where it was throwing a laptop off the table.
The Harts mentioned that they started selling stock photos to Getty images since 1999 and the photos and videos of the series were among the photos they sold to Getty but never thought would find such popularity.
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