Cute for Views, Forgotten for Life – What Happens to Social Media’s Monkey Babies?

She was famous on TikTok… until she wasn’t.

Meet Lala. A baby monkey with the biggest eyes and a smile that melted hearts. She had her own Instagram. She wore tiny dresses. She was filmed eating snacks, playing with toys, and cuddling with her owner. For a while, she had fans from all over the world.

But one day — the videos stopped.

No one saw the behind-the-scenes. The biting. The frustration. The screaming when she didn’t get attention. The growing strength that made her hard to control. Because guess what? Monkeys aren’t made to be pets. Especially not for entertainment.

And when Lala got older — when she wasn’t so cute anymore — she was abandoned.

This story isn’t rare. It’s becoming more and more common.

People adopt monkeys because they look adorable in videos. They want that viral content. But monkeys are wild animals. They don’t stay small. They don’t stay “cute.” And when they grow up — they get tossed aside like broken toys.

Many of these abandoned monkeys end up injured, depressed, or dead. Some are dumped into forests they’ve never lived in. Others are caged alone, left to scream and shake from fear. A few lucky ones get rescued by wildlife sanctuaries or good-hearted people. But even then, the trauma stays.

At www.getmonki.info, we’ve rescued monkeys like this. We’ve seen what viral fame does to them — and how cruel people can be when the cameras stop rolling.

Lala now lives with us. She’s still scared sometimes. Loud noises make her flinch. But she’s healing. She’s learning that not all humans are the same. That some of us are here to protect, not exploit.