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So long as we’re blogging about apes using the internet, I feel duty-bound to remember the web’s own simian Neil Armstrong: Koko, the first gorilla to walk in cyberspace, making nerd history in 1998 by participating in the very first — and to date, the only — interspecies web chat. Now, while that sounds pretty impressive at first blush (as it must have to the more than 20,000 AOL subscribers who logged in to “watch,” as it were), Koko’s end of the conversation was somewhat less than scintillating, reading like the dregs of a hyperactive spam filter:
MODERATOR: Koko, do you feel love from the humans who raised you?
KOKO: Koko loves that nipple drink, go.
Claiming Koko could understand 2,000 words of spoken English, her trainer, Gorillologist Dr. Penny Patterson, taught her about half that many idioms of sign language. During the chat, Patterson acted as Koko’s translator, interpreting and relaying her signs to an AOL moderator via phone. However, much of Koko’s time online was spent demanding something to eat, and eventually devolved into nonsense as the moderator began to ignore her:
KOKO: Hurry give-me mouth nipple.
MODERATOR: So everyone, buy tee-shirts – each one is a donation to the gorilla preserve!
KOKO: Fine have food lips lipstick hurry.
The astute reader may notice that Koko suffers from a malady not uncommon on the internet but downright odd in a gorilla: a nipple fetish. Which brings us to yet another giant leap for ape-kind pioneered by Koko: the sexual harrassment lawsuit. Named in at least three, the suits were brought by former employees of Dr. Patterson – all female – who claim they were pressured into flashing Koko and/or allowing her to grab their breasts. Bad gorilla!
I would like to see Koko chat with Alex, the parrot who understands the concept of zero. Alex can talk about his colored blocks, and Koko can go crazy with the nipple chat.
http://www.primidi.com/2005/07/09.html
;Chris
PS - Who is this handsome new blogger?!
posted by Chris Higgins on 8-18-2006 at 1:16 pm
If Gell-Mann could christen the quark from an obscure passage of Finnegans Wake, I think someone should produce a nipple drink called Go — you know, with a latex nipple tip instead of the usual mouth hole. Those energy drinks need a new companion.
posted by Chris Phelps on 8-18-2006 at 3:44 pm
Chris Phelps, if Koko catches you stealing her idea for a nipple drink, you’re gonna have one hairy patent fight on your hands.
posted by Ransom on 8-18-2006 at 5:05 pm
There actually have been a lot of instances of great apes (including chimps) in capitivity “harassing” their caretakers. Of course, this is just something that is totally acceptable in the wild and in certain corridors of Washington DC.
On another note, I can’t help but think that this inaugural blog was secretly dedicated to me!
posted by Abbi on 8-18-2006 at 6:39 pm
one of my friends has four year old twin boys (a lot like gorillas, but smaller) and one of them has been going through speech therapy. now that he’s finally intelligible, they’ve realized that he’s not saying very nice things. All this time they’ve been assuming he’s telling them he loves them or something, but really he’s been saying things like,”Let’s hurt daddy’s fingers!”
posted by tarynkay on 8-20-2006 at 9:00 pm
Koko may not be much of a conversationalist but at least she’s honest. If only everyone I met were as uncensored. Dates would certainly be more interesting.
Apparently “nipple” rhymes with “people.”
posted by Phil on 8-20-2006 at 10:32 pm