Thinking Monkey
Contents
About
“Thinking Monkey” is an image macro of a Barbary macaque standing in front of a seaport, staring up and off to the side with a finger tucked into the corner of its mouth, like it's working something out. Most versions use a blurry, low-res copy of the photo with a one-line caption in a white bar above it. It's all over Instagram, TikTok and Twitter / X, usually as a stand-in for someone having a questionable idea or thinking hard about nothing.
Origin
The photo was taken in Gibraltar, the British territory on the southern tip of Spain that's known for its wild macaques. The earliest known copy was posted to DeviantArt by user anagw8 on December 25th, 2011, under the title gibraltar monkeys. It sat there quietly for years.
A heavily compressed crop started showing up on meme pages after 2020 and took off in early 2024. In February 2024 the Instagram page @monitos_monkey reposted it to more than 90,000 likes. On March 4th, X user @chismosavirus paired it with a line about iced coffee needing an almond croissant, and two days later the Instagram page @acousticboiii used it for a joke about getting pulled over for drunk driving, which pulled in over 180,000 likes.
Meaning
The caption describes a moment of scheming or pondering, and the monkey supplies the face. It works for coming up with a bad plan, stalling while you think of an answer, or trying to look innocent when you've been caught. The finger at the mouth and the upward gaze read as either deep thought or total cluelessness, and a lot of the jokes play on that.
Since the source is so blurry, the image also carries a slightly unhinged, late-night energy. People use it for absurd thoughts that feel profound in the moment, like wondering whether fish get thirsty.
Examples
Popularity
See also