Animals with their own meme attributes (meme: memes, which can be understood as "terriers").
If you want to judge this year's human online deception behavior, then millions of users are keen to watch a variety of "groundhog fights" on video sites, and they will probably be on the list.
This trend may have originated from a video titled "Animal Confusing Sexual Behavior - Groundhog Persuasion" on Station B at the end of last month, which is roughly as follows: Two groundhogs in the zoo are pulling each other with small short hands, looking as if they are fighting, and even kissing small mouths when excited.
And the highlight is that another groundhog, trying to separate them, seems to be playing the role of a peacemaker. In this process, although the three parties were slightly anxious, they stopped in a daze several times, and even exchanged roles in the middle.
The title picture and video content are from the B station UP master "Badger Black Cat Jun"
A section of the bridge with a lot of human fireworks takes place among groundhogs, and indeed spawns a sitcom unique to nature's choreography. However, it is estimated that many people, including the author, can not understand why this video, which is more than a minute long, can be so popular in the human world in a short period of time. In the first few days after it was uploaded, thousands of people watched it online every day, and if you use the words of a netizen to describe this phenomenon:
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As we all know, it is not the first time that humans have been watching groundhogs on the Internet, such as the following enduring meme:
Make no mistake, it's really not a bear
The image of a ghost animal screaming from a marmot comes from a video taken by the Instagram account @lonegoatsoap on a Canadian mountain in 2015. Although this creature has never been able to make an "ah-" sound, it has unified the emotional expression of netizens in various languages around the world when they collapse.
Later, this fat, large-toothed animal no longer lacked the attention of humans.
In 2019, Chinese photographer Bao Yongqing used his camera to capture the moment when the Tibetan fox and its food, the marmot, met on the Tibetan Plateau, which won the 55th Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019.
The work is called "The Moment", which collects the two major Internet celebrity creatures after that
At the same time as winning the grand prize, the groundhog, which was on the line of life and death, and the panicked groundhog revealed at its fingertips, soon became a new emoji, consolidating its position at the top of the Internet.
This time, the groundhog has once again provoked the onlookers of the two-legged beast, or because it is similar to human behavior.
The picture of three marmots arguing at the beginning comes from the B station UP master "Bad yi black cat Jun", and the video was filmed by himself in the zoo. The black cat Jun uploaded a number of videos about animals on weekdays, but this one inexplicably triggered a carnival of netizens.
In the scorching dispute between the groundhogs, they who were once deeply bound to "ah- " did not actually make much sound, and only with three pairs of small short hands made the audience crazy. However, this also gives netizens the space to play, guessing the reason for their quarrel, people who are good at dubbing simply do it themselves to give this plot a different meaning.
So in the following days, the groundhog completely transformed into a language master, from Northeast dialect to Hakka dialect, Henan dialect to Hokkien dialect, and even foreign language, any language quarrel can be perfectly matched with this video.
In terms of themes, from JOJO, GTA, to the Peking Opera Kunqu version, various forms of theme quarrels, three groundhogs are perfectly controlled, compared with the recent equally popular "Jellyfish Memes" series, the groundhogs seem to be slightly better at the breadth of creative themes.
In fact, long before this video became popular, the groundhog persuasion behavior has been observed by many people. Turning over the past videos, you will also find that someone once summed up a sentence for this Internet celebrity creature: "As we all know, there must be one groundhog fight to persuade the fight."
It is not difficult to find that the so-called "persuasion behavior" of the groundhog did not happen by accident, but it can cause such a big reaction on the Internet, which can probably only be explained as an accident.
In addition to onlookers and ridicule, people have questioned this standard "soil fat round" shape, with the typical "not very smart looking" temperament of the animal: can the groundhog really produce a plot of persuasion?
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This also begins with the identification of the groundhog.
Although it has not been a day or two since the groundhog became an Internet celebrity, in most people's cognition, the specific image of the groundhog is actually vague - the reason is simple, and today people's definition of the groundhog is relatively vague.
Take the creatures commonly known as "groundhogs" as an answer: the "groundhog" we call them by lip service covers prairie dogs and marmots that look quite similar, both of which are squirrels but belong to two distinct genera.
Prairie dogs
The most common groundhog generally refers to marmots, and there are many other species. For example, the marmot in the persuasion video can be judged as a Himalayan marmot from the triangular black fur on the top of the head. The marmot in the screaming meme is the American marmot that is widely distributed in the woodlands and fields of North America.
American Marmot (Groundhog)
Most species of marmots prefer to live in groups in burrows, are social, and usually interact with each other by feeding, playing, grooming, kissing, and so on.
However, some species of marmots do not behave much differently in social and fighting, such as the Himalayan marmot in the persuasion video, as a docile rodent, they fight as joyfully as in the video.
As for the behavior that looks like "persuasion", it is most likely that the groundhog that persuades the fight also wants to fight.
The "Scream Master" American Marmot is different, and its scream is not because of the collapse, but is used as a warning. If done directly, the aggressive American marmot is not very Sven. The Americans who have lived with it for a long time have a lot of say in this matter.
There is a traditional festival in North America – it is believed that if the American marmot emerges from the hole on February 2 every year, it means that spring will soon come, and if not, it means that winter will not end for six weeks. They called this day "Groundhog Day," and during the festive season, some parts of North America were invited by mayors to bring in "prophets" groundhogs to hold spring ceremonies. In the spring of 2015, a mayor of Wisconsin was bitten by its solid body while "listening" to the groundhog primrose.
The classic comedy film "Groundhog Day" is also named after this local custom
Unlike marmots, prairie dogs are known among marmots for their high IQ and strong language system. In fact, it illuminates a talent for language that is even higher than that of parrots and gorillas, which are generally considered to be strong in language.
Prairie dogs tend to look clear-eyed compared to marmots
Researchers at the University of Northern Arizona have spent 30 years studying the barking of prairie dogs, collecting and comparing the calls of many different populations of marmots during their growth, and after comparing their sonarograms in large quantities, they have found "words" that express color, size, and shape from their calls.
Con Slobodchikoff, an animal behaviorist in charge of the project, rated the rodent's ability to express it quite highly, "They were able to describe information such as the size of humans, the color of their clothes, and even whether they were carrying a gun." In a dozen seconds, they could convey the precise message that a tall skinny man in a blue shirt slowly crossed the territory."
It is precisely because of the good mind, a certain understanding of language, and high appearance, the prairie dog rat has also been domesticated into a quite human pet, also known as the black-tailed marmot, its image has basically become the representative of the marmot in the pet field, a few years ago it was once wildly sought after by people.
Interestingly, due to the relatively expensive price, domestic merchants often use captive-bred Himalayan marmots as their "flat replacement", and those who can't recognize marmots are even more confused about the two kinds of pets.
Of course, this can not blame netizens. In recent years, because the majority of netizens have the stereotype that the marmot is "fat and long teeth", even animals such as bamboo rats and mongooses are often mistakenly added to the ranks of marmots on the Internet, let alone the original marmot.
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Although the groundhog has become a top Internet celebrity on social networks, and it is true that it is full of treasures and temperament suitable for contact with people, it also has an awkward identity - the natural host of the plague.
At the beginning of the last century, there was a serious epidemic of plague in northeast China, causing 60,000 deaths, and the famous public health expert Wu Liande found wild marmots in it when he explored the origin of this plague. In 2014, the death of human marmot infection with plague in Gansu also reawakened people's awareness of "plague".
Woollend with the Northeast Plague of 1910-1911
However, in recent years, the popularity of marmots on the Internet has made some domestic tourist attractions give local marmots the sign of "the most worthwhile punch card to the plateau", attracting a large number of tourists to tease and feed these animals that are gradually not afraid of people.
The content of close contact with wild marmots spread on social platforms, and in a short period of time, it was a new trend of travel to Tibet, and some tourists not only got close to them, but even took photos by kissing and feeding with their mouths.
After many appeals by some experts, netizens popularize the plague hazards, and some scenic spots have also removed the sign of "can feed groundhogs" under the pressure of public opinion, but to this day, these behaviors still cannot prevent people outside the fence of scenic spots from contacting wild groundhogs.
In the popular photo or video comment areas of tourists interacting with groundhogs on social media, netizens' "ah-- " and "plague warnings" are intertwined, which is a perfect interpretation of people's cognitive state of "top internet celebrities" groundhogs - of course, until our stereotypes of groundhogs are changed, let's keep a certain distance from wild internet celebrities.
The reproduced content represents the views of the author only
Does not represent the position of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Original title: "Groundhog, an animal with its own Internet attributes"
Source: Game Research Society
Edit: Fun Superman