# IKEA Monkey

> Photos of a coat-wearing monkey at IKEA prompted over 2,300 hashtag tweets in a day.

- Owner: null
- Kind: Meme & format
- Sector: Culture (no sector)
- Seed date: 2012-12-09
- Milestone date: 2012-12-10
- Date basis: Documented milestone; not a measured attention peak.
- Spread Score: 48 (Notable, provisional), v1.3
- Mechanics: Real-world spectacle, Response chain, Platform jump, Press loop, Controversy

## Summary

Shoppers posted photos of Darwin at a Toronto IKEA, followed by parodies, Reddit edits and TV reports. The December 10 tweet count marks an initial milestone. A custody dispute, merchandise and a game kept the story in circulation.

## Timeline

- 2012-12-09 — Lisa Lin (@dzd_lisa) / Bronwyn Iler Page (@broniewyn) (X) — Lin tweeted her Instagram photo of Darwin; Page posted a separate photograph later that day.
- 2012-12-09 — The Globe and Mail (Press) — The Globe and Mail covered the sighting and the Twitter parody accounts.
- 2012-12-10 — toucher, go4 and eppemsk (Reddit) — Image edits reached Reddit after Elliott's landmark Photoshop on Twitter.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/ikea-monkey

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “IKEA Monkey.” Case HIS-01634. Spread Score v1.3: 48/100. Updated 2026-10-23. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-01634