Treerat: A Deep Dive in the “Monkey Hate” Phenomena
CW: Animal Abuse
When a dog or cat appears on screen in a horror film, people say aloud, “They better not die.” As humans, a member of the mammalian species, we are very averse to witnessing any sort of misfortune or pain on our four-legged friends. We’re so used to seeing that happen to human characters in media, that we pay no real mind to it. Whenever harm has happened to humans, we think logistically about how to help them and rest well with the knowledge that they’ll make proactive steps to better their situation. But, when the same goes for the animals, we are uncomfortable with the species and power divide, and knowing that you can’t properly help it and get its consent, we choose to not observe any tragedy that’ll befall them.
On YouTube, particularly the disturbing true crime side, there are videos detailing a seemingly recent phenomenon of people who actively wish for pain and suffering to happen to animals. This brand of zoosadism targets monkeys and to be more specific, babies. “Monkey Hate” started to get noticed whenever people checked the comments of videos on monkeys, filled with vitriolic comments about the ways they want the monkey to hurt, to bring anguish to it, something so terrible that their primordial brains wouldn’t be able to fully comprehend the violence they’re experiencing.
The following comments are real Facebook comments on the monkey-snuff sharing profile page, Tree Rat Red Sauce:
For a video of a baby macaque, covered in mud:
“The only way to clean that pos is to tie it to a cinder block and throwing it in the river.”
“No matter how many times you wash filth, it is still filth.”
For a video of a crying monkey, sick with a disease:
“I start shaking when I hear that sound! I don’t know what irritates me more: that sound or those organizations that gather all the Karen people of this world! (Stop Abuse to Baby Monkeys)”
PavPav the blond macaque crying out to his mom:
“I’d love to beat the fuck out of that pussy ass little pig. Him & Abu, Dalton, Mimi & kuku. Greedy ass fckn pigs I’d have so much fun killing them.”
These videos, however, were available anywhere on the web. They don’t try to hide these videos of them making the baby monkeys suffer, they openly show it and are applauded in this niche community. The real monkey haters gathered around 4chan and Telegram where they would exchange and share gore videos of monkeys. Americans would use the app Telegram to get into contact with people in SE Asia and commission them to record monkey torture videos. Most videos were commissioned out of Indonesia and with the conversion of American dollars to Indonesian rupiahs, a meager $10 can equal up to 16,000 rupiahs. The people who produce these snuff films are poor, poachers who already have a disregard for animal lives they start getting into this business to make extra cash. They need the money; the sadistic foreigners will gladly pay them for the monkey gore videos.
Lingua Franca
Like any niche subculture or group, they speak a certain way, use words that have double meanings, and borrow words from other languages. The Monkey Hate community is no different. The diversity of the people, coming from France, Spain, Poland, America, Brazil, China, and various SE Asian countries, has brought a unique infusion of English to get their point across. “Monyet” is the Malaysian word for monkey and has replaced the word “monkey” within the community.
In the community, they utilize a phrase, “million pity” or “million tears,” which comes from Malaysian accounts posting sad monkey videos on YouTube. They don’t speak English regularly and use those phrases to get across that the video is sad, usually of a baby monkey fussing about not getting milk from its mother, other monkeys get violent with the baby monkey, or if the baby monkey fell from the tree and died. Often, “million pity” is used mockingly towards the monkeys in the torture videos, and will tag videos with the phrase to amass more of an audience. It’s almost acting like a secret code to find other like-minded monkey haters.
We collectively have a sense of what a “Karen” is: a white woman who feels threatened by black kids swimming in a public pool or someone who makes a big scene at a Denny’s for not accepting a coupon one day past the use-by date. In these circles, “Karen” refers to women who report these videos and try to doxx the users. A lot of vitriolic hate for the Karen, the hate for these “monkey sympathizers” is a bonding activity in the subculture. They have a male counterpart to the Karen,whicht is “Darren.” I don’t know why “Darren” was the choice, other than it sounds similar to Karen.
The word “sauce” has a layered meaning within their language. “Share the Sauce” is a common phrase you’ll find in the forums and comments, of people begging the original poster to DM them the source of the video. “Sauce” sounds like “source” if you want to stretch it. But “sauce” is also used as a code word for the content of particular videos. Mild sauce is the plain beating of a monkey, hot sauce is more hardcore violence, and spicy sauce is bloodier and more intense.
The final tier is an extremely spicy sauce, full-on torture snuff videos of the monkeys going through the cruelest acts anyone could think of. Acts of violence so terrible that I can’t bring myself to type it all out. Genital mutilation is extremely common in these videos. Teeth pulling is featured in many of the videos. Some of the time, it’s done for the abuser’s safety as macaques have large canines. One video by a man had him pulling out a baby’s teeth so that it would be easier for him to force-feed it Thai chili peppers. These are highly sought-after videos, it’s practically gold in the monkey hater circle.
The interesting thing about them is how they compartmentalized their hatred towards the monkeys. A lot of them will have likes of cat videos and dogs doing tricks. Pictures of their pets dressed up or lying with them on the couch. There was one user who posted about how upset they got when they came across a run-over cat. They’ll say that the macaque are parasites. Macaques in places like Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bali, Indonesia, and Cambodia are categorized by their governments as invasive species even though internationally they are referred to as vulnerable. Rhesus are not considered to be endangered and they’re one of the most common species found in the snuff films.
Reign of Karenmafia
Facebook and Telegram are the bread and butter for this group. There are multiple “treerat” groups, most of which are Facebook groups of people loving squirrels, posting videos or asking for “sauce.” The biggest one is the Facebook group Karenmafia which has 2.6K followers and it seemed to grow to an extra hundred followers every other day.
Facebook monkey haters seem to have a more tribalistic understanding of the world: you’re either with them or against them. They don’t condone racism (unless it’s directed towards SE Asians then they won’t pay any mind to it), homophobia, transphobia, religious discrimination, none of that will fly with them. Whereas the monkey haters on Twitter seem to be more on the alt-right side of things. Karenmafia on Twitter had a profile picture of a distressed monkey with a yarmulke, a Magen David, and donning payot sidelocks.
Profile Picture, Karenmafia, main curator of monkey hate content
Back in May 12, Karenmafia’s Twitter account was completely wiped as well as other monkey hate profiles. In his Telegram, he states that a “secret Jew” was the reason he got reported. He blamed Elon Musk for failing to “protect” his profile. His followers will tweet things like Nazi imagery, implications that the LGBTQ+ community houses pedophiles, and referring to Black people as the simians in the videos and pictures. On the Telegram, he states his want for a monkey Holocaust and asks to gas them out.
Posted to TreeRat Culinary Facebook page
Why With the Anger?
A question that is often raised about this group from animal rights groups and people, in general, is why they are so fixated on hurting monkeys. There isn’t a definite answer, factors can lead to some conclusions for some of the followers of the group while not everyone else.
The Uncanny Valley Effect has been cited and discussed as being a main for the hostility. In the BBC documentary, “Saving Mini: Inside the Global Network Torturing Baby Monkeys,” one of the people interviewed said that it was satisfying to see something suffer that closely resembles a human. Animal rights activists and people who have done sex work have identified in the videos BDSM sort of tactics and restraints are used in the videos, being evidence for the theory that these snuff films are pornographic for the zoosadists. US Homeland Security Investigations Official, Paul Wolpert, explained how there’s a connection between the monkey hate community and pedophiles in the way they act, speak, and negotiate prices and what to do to the monkeys.
Whenever I was observing the Facebook pages and seeing who were interacting a lot were middle-aged women. Mothers who had their children in their profile pictures. They’ll post Bible quotes, and share recipes on their pages. None would be the wiser about what these women were watching in their free time. People have speculated that these women are watching these videos to let out the aggression and intrusive thoughts they may have with their own children. But, there’s nothing to draw from the fact that these videos strangely attract mothers.
Aftermath
I started writing this article back when there wasn’t a whole lot of attention being brought to the “Monkey Hate” videos. It was some fringe, dark underside of the internet that the only people who knew and kept a close eye on it were the animal rights activists or PETA. Fortunately, there is some good news. The BBC released the “Saving Mini” documentary on June 19th, 2023 investigating the networks and the global monkey torture ring. After the documentary came out, the US government started to formally prosecute members of the monkey hate community. Since June of 2023, every month, they have found another person involved in the dark internet group. As recently as August of this year, they charged an Iowan man for distributing videos depicting monkey torture and mutilation by the Office of Public Affairs.
A screenshot of Mini from “Saving Mini”
Before writing this whole article, I would be ashamed of myself, would hate me doing all of this work, and seeing all of these terrible violent acts because I was curious to see where it would take me. I have seen videos that no one should ever see. I’ve watched infant monkeys lose their voices because they screamed for so long and all they can make are craggily grunts and whimpers. I have been more emotional towards my animals. I shut myself out to everyone; my friends, family, and even my therapist I have lied to and built walls so that they won’t know what I’ve been researching. My psychotic-depressive symptoms have gotten worse, more hallucinations, more nightmares, screaming in my sleep, lights and sounds become painful and I’ve once or twice had panic attacks as a result. My house is old and wooden; the floorboards creak and the door hinges will squeak. When I hear those sounds, like a veteran hearing firecrackers and experiencing wartime flashbacks, I’ll see those screaming simian faces, full of confusion and pain. My hands will start shaking and I’ll have to remind myself to breathe—a PTSD symptom. However, I feel much stronger and bolder as a writer and an investigator. It hardened me in a way where I can take what I experience and apply it to my future as a writer.