Monkey Puppet

Monkey Puppet, or Awkward Look Monkey, shows a red-haired puppet darting his eyes sideways and then facing forward. The character is Kento from the long-running Japanese educational program Ōkiku naru Ko; Latin American broadcasts called him Pedro.

The puppet is decades older than the meme. Spanish-language users first paired worried stills with “No ahora, por favor” for small disasters and unwanted moments. Chilean outlet T13 was already reporting the format on April 8, 2016 after it had circulated for weeks, so March 2016 is the earliest responsible date here, with the exact day unknown.

A March 31 YouTube upload helped reconnect the reaction to the old TV footage, and a looping side-eye GIF reached Giphy in June. The motion changed the joke: the first glance acknowledges danger or guilt; the turn away performs innocence.

On July 1, 2016, @ultkjongin used the GIF in a Twitter reply during a viral exchange involving Staples and Kris Jenner. English-language reaction pages, Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit then detached the puppet from “No ahora, por favor” and made it a flexible response for hypocrisy, awkward eye contact and being caught.

It performs a complete social panic in two tiny movements: notice the problem, then act as if you never saw it. The huge eyes keep the denial obviously unconvincing.

Use it when someone mentions the thing you did, a conversation turns uncomfortable, you witness hypocrisy or you want to quietly back away from responsibility.