Monkey News
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
164.31561
Summary
It's the last episode of the year, which means it's time for a special Christmas treat: all of 2019's much anticipated monkey news. This week, Harry goes over all of the news from 2019, starting in January of this year, and finishes at the end of November.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello there, and today I'm going to be going over the much-anticipated monkey news for 2025.
00:00:21.020
By the way, you can stop messaging me about it now. At least twice a week I get a message like,
00:00:25.700
when are you doing monkey news? When are you doing monkey news? Nice gestures you're doing there, Harry.
00:00:30.440
And now I'm doing it, alright? I said I did it at Christmas, and here you are, my gift to you.
00:00:34.560
I'm going through all of the year's monkey news sequentially, starting from January to November,
00:00:40.720
because we're pre-recording this at the end of November, so I can't do December's monkey news
00:00:45.040
because I don't have my monkey news crystal ball, but I will roll that into next year's, I'm sure.
00:00:50.160
The great heartbreak about monkey news, of course, is that it can only be a Christmas treat.
00:00:54.520
It can't be all year, because we don't want to spoil you with monkey news.
00:00:59.080
And also, monkeys aren't that industrious. It takes a whole year to accrue enough news for one segment.
00:01:04.660
Monkeys are comparable with Ents from Lords of the Rings in that way. They take their time to do things.
00:01:10.500
Yeah, that's the reason we've never been able to figure out their language, is that they just take a really long time.
00:01:18.400
Last year's monkey news was a little bit whimsical and fun.
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This one is a story of a war between monkeys and people, starting in January of this year.
00:01:35.960
Pet monkey jumps through drive-thru window and attacks Starbucks worker in Mobile, Alabama.
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Or mobile. I don't know how you would say it there, but I would say mobile.
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Alabama. Please, editor, insert picture of Barack Obama with a big red arrow pointing at him.
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It is my right as an Englishman to pronounce it that way.
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So it was an aotus monkey jumped through a Starbucks drive-thru window and attacked a barista, biting and scratching her.
00:02:08.900
And apparently a co-worker pulled the monkey off and the police responded, but no charges were filed as the monkey was able to escape with its pet human.
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And as a word of warning, the box isn't working.
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Yeah, I know. He's been on the run for a long time.
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Well, it's not all bad news because the world in March noticed the world's first human running monkey.
00:03:03.820
Well, I'm sorry for this being on TikTok, but it's the best video I could find.
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I spent, believe me, I actually spent 45 minutes looking for the best video.
00:03:14.740
As he got closer to the camera, it's like he realised.
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It's like, stay in character. I'm just a monkey.
00:03:27.280
So, the story behind this monkey is actually a little bit sad.
00:03:33.000
It was born with both of its arms missing, I think, or it lost them.
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But it does run like a Japanese anime character.
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No, that would be hunched over with both arms stretched behind its back.
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It looks like he's running away from these cameramen and these people chased by him.
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He wasn't actually able to run like this until the cameras were out and then he was running away.
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But it's a nice wholesome story of how a monkey has adapted.
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And now people take care of the monkey because it's become a big internet phenomenon.
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Stressed monkey with marshmallow addiction rescued from birdcage.
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So, shame on you, Scottish person that did this.
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I was going to say, what a bizarre series of words put in front of one another until you mentioned that it was in Scotland.
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Actually, that monkey was probably eating a healthier diet than any Scot in at least a mile radius.
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That was the most healthy thing they could find.
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So, some leeway should be given to the people of Scotland.
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And all of you, apparently, collectively blamed for this.
00:05:06.160
So, apparently, monkey rights campaign has pointed to the case of Steve, the name of the monkey, a four-year-old marmoset,
00:05:12.620
as an example of why laws in the UK should be tightened around monkeys.
00:05:16.060
And I think that probably keeping them in a birdcage, stressing them out and feeding them marshmallows is not the best thing for them.
00:05:23.660
I don't think that's a particularly good simulation of their natural environment, to be honest.
00:05:28.580
And the worst of all, they have to live in Scotland in the cold, which is probably not good for a monkey.
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On an island off the coast of Panama, in an unusual population of capuchin monkeys, the only one of their kind to use stone tools,
00:06:08.960
Immature male monkeys were stealing and carrying infants of a different species on their backs, sometimes for days at a time.
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What we have been able to document is that this strange behaviour, which started with a single animal and is now spread throughout the entire population,
00:06:32.660
But I find it interesting here that they finally found the sort of Madonna of monkeys.
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So, the monkeys are carrying other species of infants on their backs, kind of in the same way that Paris Hilton would carry around that tiny dog in her bag.
00:06:54.860
So, apparently, capuchins and howler monkeys cohabit mostly without issue because their diets don't conflict and therefore they don't have to compete with one another.
00:07:04.700
And so, it isn't like a, we hate these monkeys, you know, we're taking something out on them.
00:07:10.100
And what's really weird is that it started off with a young male and spread to the other young males before spreading to the whole group, which is weird.
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But, yeah, it's also the young men in which tool use originated.
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So, it could be, as some of the researchers have speculated, and this is some top-ed, you know, cutting-edge science, that the monkeys are bored.
00:07:44.140
Apparently, in the span of 15 months, 11 infant howler monkeys were carried by juvenile or sub-adult male capuchin monkeys for periods of up to nine days.
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The reason it's periods of up to nine days is because they don't have breasts to feed them, and therefore the monkeys slowly die.
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And when they stop being able to grip because they're so weak, the monkeys carry them for a bit in their arms, and when they stop being able to carry them, they leave them for dead.
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I was, like, this woman's here, like, oh, this is such an exciting and interesting development.
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I can't wait to find, oh, they just killed them.
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But anyway, something a bit more interesting and a little bit more light-hearted.
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In Hong Kong, I believe, there was a banner saying, don't feed the monkeys, otherwise you will face this 5,000-something currency fine.
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And you can notice here in the picture, the monkey is tearing the part with the fine.
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So this happened on the 16th of June, and it is targeting a sign that's saying, fixed penalty, 5,000, says dollars here, that's obviously not right, leaving the fine amount conspicuously torn away.
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And people were speculating that this suggests monkey intelligence, but knowing what monkeys are like, this was probably just a coincidence.
00:09:21.140
Okay, so another thing that I found interesting, that isn't depressing, thankfully, is some parallels between long-tailed macaques and human beings.
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Basically, they showed lots of videos to these macaques and tried to follow what they paid most attention to.
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And they paid most attention to videos of aggression, which makes sense.
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You sort of want to pay attention to that, don't you?
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You know, I've seen Stelios look at many fight videos in the office.
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Stelios is always on the lookout for potential threats.
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And they preferred watching known group members over strangers, so monkeys have in-group preference.
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And low-ranking, less aggressive monkeys watch more closely than dominant individuals.
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And so the moral of the story is, if you're a dominant male, don't watch television.
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My favourite thing of all about this isn't the findings itself.
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The most interesting at all is, no matter how many times we shock Josh, his behaviour never changes.
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Is this picture of the monkeys sat around a laptop.
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And I'm pretty sure this is actually what they did.
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Watching cat videos on YouTube at 3am on a Saturday morning.
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Yeah, we were doing this instead of coursework.
00:11:15.080
Um, there has been a monkey crime ring exposed in Bali.
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Josh, you're really testing my ability to hold my tongue with some of these headlines.
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Keir Starmer will show up personally at my house if I say anything that I want to.
00:11:35.660
So, long-tailed macaques have taken over, um, this temple here.
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And are using it as a base to run shakedowns on tourists.
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So, they steal the possession, then require you to barter its value in bananas, mango, or some other, um, fruit, um, for the object's return.
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And researchers have found that the monkeys can distinguish between objects that we highly value, like smartphones, prescription glasses, and wallets, and those that we don't, like hats, flip-flops, and hair clips, and will barter accordingly to how we value it, which, um...
00:12:11.620
And this is from the University of Leftbridge, um, a team that spent years filming the monkeys.
00:12:15.660
I wonder how many times they got shaken down, um, while they were filming the monkeys.
00:12:22.360
Yeah, just monkeys bullying a bunch of academics.
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But what this demonstrates is that these monkeys were able to make clear economic decisions.
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You know, they have economic decision-making, which is more than can be said for many human beings.
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They immediately established a bartering system using various means of exchange and exchange currencies.
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Economists are, like, high-fiving themselves right now.
00:12:55.320
Marxists on suicide watch when monkeys invent capitalism.
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But in the worst and the most exploitative way possible, to be fair.
00:13:08.060
Um, so, from bad to worse, um, another criminal was this.
00:13:15.480
About, uh, this got lots of news reports in Japan.
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Apparently, um, it was randomly appearing around Tokyo.
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Vandalised buildings, attacks the locals and tourists, and escapes before getting caught.
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And apparently, he's been doing it across ten months and across three different prefectures.
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This monkey is actually searching for vengeance to find the person that took its arm from him.
00:13:46.440
I hope it'll get a bionic arm and then have its redemption at the end.
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And then it'll turn out that he's going to have to defeat some demonic god in some form or another.
00:13:58.180
And, uh, there is also some more monkey mischief.
00:14:01.380
And the best kind of monkey mischief, that of Indian monkey mischief, um, which is always some of my favourite.
00:14:09.960
Uh, I'm going to read this in its original broken English because it's hilarious.
00:14:16.640
Locals in UP's area witnessed an unexpected money reign after a monkey flung currency notes it stole from a man at some office in some place.
00:14:28.080
And the monkey's actions caused the owner, uh, Rohitash Chandra, to lose, uh, 28,000 rupees.
00:14:39.320
After people present at the scene scrambled for cash,
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the primate took cash from inside a bag kept in his motorcycle boot and started tossing it.
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The bag contained 80,000 rupees, but only 52,000 was recovered.
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Which is kind of hilarious that the monkey just went on a tree and was just like,
00:15:09.340
The monkey sees the caste system in India and determines that it's a series of,
00:15:19.000
Monkeys, of course, not a fan of human hierarchy because they want to be the top.
00:15:30.200
This happened in August of a man died after being attacked by 20 monkeys, uh,
00:15:35.580
apparently, um, he was collecting fodder for his livestock and, uh, he just got jumped by
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a bunch of monkeys when he was minding his own business.
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And in an unprovoked attack, all of these monkeys, uh, just attacked him for no reason.
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The truth of the matter is monkeys are quite dangerous.
00:16:00.220
The first major monkey news story I ever heard was from my friend in secondary school who
00:16:06.040
told me that when his dad was younger, he'd gone on a trip to Thailand or somewhere in
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that area where you naturally find monkeys and decided to take mushrooms while he was
00:16:17.400
And who then, I don't know how, somehow while on his trip managed to antagonize the local
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monkeys that were on the mountain path up and ended up getting chased down the mountain
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So immediately, so my first major monkey lesson, because that's what we're here for at
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Monkey News is to impart on you monkey wisdom and monkey lessons for your monkey future.
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This was from 2018, just to show how dangerous these monkeys are.
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Um, a man was stoned to death by monkeys, which sounds actually really quite brutal.
00:17:06.240
Well, yeah, they're targeting an old man, these horrible monkeys.
00:17:10.320
Um, but yeah, apparently they're throwing stones at him.
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But, uh, I'm going to pivot to something a bit more lighthearted, because I don't want
00:17:19.800
to dwell on Indians getting stoned to death by monkeys.
00:17:26.780
So, this is in a North Carolina zoo called Zoo-tastic Park, um, which, uh, you know, well done for
00:17:52.120
He didn't immediately start messing with the power lines, did he?
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No, um, this was not, uh, any point of concern for the monkey.
00:18:13.220
They were fine, and they were taken back to the zoo.
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So actually getting hit by the car was sort of a blessing.
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It was cosmic monkey justice from the big monkey up in the sky.
00:18:32.960
But, I mean, that is an adorable looking monkey, to be fair.
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They do all look the same anyway, so there is that.
00:18:44.800
And, um, there is an actual positive news story.
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That, um, scientists were able to, uh, I'll get lost.
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Um, there was an anti-aging breakthrough, and stem cells were able to reverse the signs
00:19:01.220
of aging in monkeys, so it seems like scientists...
00:19:07.940
Peter Thiel is watching this with great interest.
00:19:11.060
As is that Brian Johnson, the guy who shares the name with ACDC's vocalist.
00:19:19.780
He does, even if he does, like, track him and his son's boners at night.
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Some weird father-son bonding experiences there.
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Bit of friendly competition between father and son.
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That's what the whole thing is about, is so that he can prove to his son that he gets stronger
00:19:49.500
So, apparently, Chinese scientists have genetically engineered stem cells capable of rejuvenating
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the health, including the cognition, of aged macaques.
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Um, super stem cells, as they call them, improve the memory of monkeys while protecting against
00:20:03.660
The super stem cells prevented age-related bone loss while rejuvenating over 50% of 61 tissues
00:20:09.120
analysed, and treatment with stem cells reduced inflammation and senescent cells, which are
00:20:21.180
So, presumably, this might lead to anti-ageing breakthroughs in human beings as well.
00:20:28.320
Well, because, uh, you know, we are indeed primates, unfortunately.
00:20:33.640
Although, I haven't been throwing rocks at Indian people.
00:20:42.820
Um, but, uh, speaking of which, um, this isn't really, um, that much in the way of news,
00:20:50.680
but I thought it was funny, and I wanted to include anyway.
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Um, that in October, a monkey stole a little girl's phone.
00:21:00.740
So, some girl was doing a cringe dance, and, uh, and she sort of backs away.
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And then the monkey runs away with the phone, just like, enough of this cringe.
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The monkey is the cringe police, and, uh, I think this warms my heart.
00:21:27.180
Monkey's enforcing, you know, no cringe policies on young kids.
00:21:34.640
I mean, the fact that we've got the video, was this being filmed live?
00:21:39.400
This could have been published on the monkey's Instagram, who knows?
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But if this was being filmed live, if you were watching the live stream,
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if you wanted, like, three people watching the live stream,
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can you imagine, like, seeing her, like, the fear?
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So, monkeys don't even have to be real to cause problems.
00:22:03.200
In New Jersey, um, I think people were sending AI videos to the police
00:22:08.400
and telling them that there were wild monkeys on the loose in New Jersey.
00:22:11.620
And, uh, apparently they realised it was a, uh, hoax.
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That actually people were using AI to fool the police.
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So this was not a wild goose chase, this was a wild monkey chase.
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Now, I think for the most anticipated story, monkey news of the year.
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And, uh, this is one that I got sent incessantly, by the way.
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Um, I'm sure you must have heard about this one, Harry.
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And this is a story that sounds like it came out of a movie.
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...had to conduct an urgent search for dangerous research monkeys
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who escaped from a crash wreckage on a highway.
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Authorities say a truck carrying nearly two dozen rhesus monkeys
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Authorities warning they might be aggressive towards people
00:23:11.820
and were potentially affected with hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID.
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If you see the AIDS monkeys, do not go and take a photo with the AIDS monkeys.
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They may have to neutralize something out here in a minute.
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He probably thinks he's imagining the whole thing.
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but I couldn't find the original clip anywhere,
00:24:34.200
The racist AIDS monkeys will only approach white people
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You will not be approached by the racist AIDS monkeys.
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where the zombie monkeys begin to swarm and attack.