https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5382391/gorilla-100-men-viral-debate
We don’t know who came up with this crass “news” story or the underlying concept of “man vs. primate,” but it’s unworthy of our civilization at least — and soul-less at worst. Who really cares about the hypothetical 100 men vs gorilla debate?
There are so many negative and destructive elements here, it’s hard to know where to begin. It’s unclear whether the real fight is physical or just against the erosion of common sense.
We would compare it to the “ice-bucket challenge,” but at least there are no innocent animals attacked there — only sports figures, and they willingly go out on the field to be abused anyway.
Besides, there’s no indication of what the prize is for winning. [Seems clear that if the gorilla wins, those losers of certain political persuasions will want him to get the right to vote, or at least register to vote.]
That’s not to say that other primates don’t have a sense of humor. One chimp was overheard asking another chimp “Why do you call everybody ‘a$$hole’?” — and the other one responded “Because it’s gender-neutral!”
Moving on to the designated “100,” as the apparently arbitrary number of “men” selected for this exercise in futility:
The most obvious group of 100 would be the members of the United States Senate, but that would include some 26 “women” — if any of them can even define what a “woman” is. Just picture 1 silverback (no doubt, this is a MALE) responding to an attack by the aging population of the world’s greatest deliberative body!
Or a group of the 50 Governors and 50 AG’s of the States might provide a more vigorous selection of homo sapiens (DANG, there it goes again, the sexist Latin designation of the male of the species). Oh well, can’t win ’em all.
Who knows, maybe they would enter the battlefield and realize that “man” and gorilla don’t have to go to war after all (though it’s hard to ignore the fact that men without non-human enemies find enough wars on their own).
Or maybe it would end in a stand-off, while the combatants took a hint from the story of the ape who was seen leaving the Congressional Library with a bible under one arm and a copy of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” under the other. When asked, he replied that he was trying to figure out whether he was his brother’s keeper or his keeper’s brother.
All that said, we award the Molière Citation to all those who pose these bizarre questions of man vs. nature in all its forms, and those who report on them, with the hope that this one remains hypothetical and never comes to pass.
Special recognition of NPR, for proving that not all of your reporting is required to be politically slanted.
We took a quick glance online to search for amusing topics on the 100 men vs gorilla debate. We found MrBeast meme image shared on Forbes, depicting the strength of man and gorilla prepared to fight in a battle. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/04/30/the-internet-wants-to-know-if-100-men-can-defeat-a-single-gorilla/
Our take on the social media conversation in photo form. These 100 men are politicians and are using their debate stage to try and argue with the gorilla. We think even in this instance there would be casualties. Remember not long ago Senator Cory Booker pushed the envelope to talk from the podium for 25 hours, ensuring he was the longest congressional speaker in American history. We wrote about this long winded Senator in a previous article: https://molierecitations.com/booker-sets-record-for-longest-senate-speech-ever-with-anti-trump-marathon/
In a world where people debate gorilla combat scenarios more passionately than current policy, maybe the real battle is for our collective attention span.
Photo: created using Canva