‘Whatever you need, I am your main monkey
The entire world can feel as a nightmare, designed by someone with all of your pain points in your mind. Being online, if you have to be or wish to remain in the loop, can make all that worse — your therapist would likely tell you to close this tab and proceed outdoors. While that is generally good information, all due respect to your therapist, however, she has not seen these ASMR role-play videos where a velvet-voiced Funky Kong soothes your world-weary heart using encouragement and a few gentle understanding.
Going through a breakup? Funky Kong has some words of wisdom for you from”his people” (that might or might not just be recaps of different narrative arcs out of Donkey Kong games). Enjoy not your luggage? Funky Kong knows everything isn’t for everyone. Funky Kong can pick you up from the airport! And sing for you! He is here for you, bro. He’s even more here for you if you listen to him with headphones on, to get every bit of his positivity. (Caveat: if you are one of those people who recoils in the noise of chewinggum, Funky Kong may not be for you.
The 2 videos, which have since been parodied several times by others, were uploaded in 2014 and 2016 from Topher Florence, a video editor living in northern Georgia. Inspired by many earlier ASMR comedy role-play movies, like this one containing Bobby out of King of the Hill, Florence created Emotionally Available Funky Kong as a corrective to the character’s”dreadful and shrill voice” in Mario Kart for Wii.
“I just thought that giving him a really serene and soothing voice was a really funny idea,” he told The Verge in a message. “I also like the notion of someone being gobsmacked by the name of this video alone and having to see it for themselves. People frequently [visit a ] video thumbnail and title and then you will find comments like,’Wait, this was real?’ [I enjoy ] that kind of’friendly troll’ response”
Ironically, for the comedy of yes, there is actually a video in which the frattiest Donkey Kong character rejects toxic masculinity and gets gently vulnerable with you when you’re having difficulty, many individuals have actually reached out to Florence because he published the video to thank him. After all, who wouldn’t wish to get told by a gravelly voiced cool-guy ape who”you are a radical person, and you deserve the most smoking lifestyle potential”?
“Lots of this response was people surprised that it has genuinely helped them out or calmed them down, or that it functions as real ASMR, which was deliberate,” he states. “I made it’actual’ ASMR encouragement to make it intriguing, despite being idiotic, it kind of functions.”
So whether you’re stressed out or upset, or depressed, or simply exhausted, try to sit back, relax, and let Funky Kong does the job to cure all of your broken, ragey components. (Either that, or just allow his absurdism stun you long to forget what you’re mad about.)
