About Thinking Monkey
The Thinking Monkey meme features a Barbary macaque resting a finger against its mouth while sitting in front of a harbor. People add captions to the image to joke about sudden ideas, overthinking mundane situations, or trying to make a difficult decision.
The original photograph was taken in Gibraltar and uploaded to DeviantArt by user anagw8 in December 2011. People later added text to the image to turn the monkey’s pose into an internal monologue or decision-making joke. The template spread across Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram as a reaction image for everyday thoughts and overthinking.
