By Jack Keller

You’re scrolling Tik Tok when it hits: a baby capuchin in overalls, mounting his toy car and flooring the gas pedal. A bush baby in doll’s clothes springing into a human hand. A spider monkey swinging from a chandelier. Maybe even a baby chimp in diapers being tickled.

The video racks up millions of views, and thousands of commenters gush: “I need one,” “My dream pet” and “Where can I get one?”  

The internet loves primates, especially when they’re playing dress up. These videos, often stripped of context and consequence, glamorize exotic pet ownership while masking the deeply rooted trauma these animals endure.

They also drive a multi-billion-dollar trade in the U.S. that thrives on exploitation, short-term adoration and long-term suffering.

If you’re wondering who’s driving the demand, look no further than your For You Page, where you might find Life With Gaitlyn, a Tik Tok account amassing nearly 9 million followers. The account is dedicated to documenting the life of Gaitlyn Rae, a 12-year-old pet capuchin. There are videos of her playing with a dog and side by side with a baby—both wearing diapers.

When scrolling Gaitlyn’s page, you’ll see disturbing videos of her doing chores around the house. She’ll flip the bacon her owners are cooking, help break apart snap peas, and even mop the floor—on the floor mopping video, the top comment reads “this is exactly why I want oneee.” Apparently, they’re not only cute, but they’ll also wash your dishes too—how sick is that?

Kyndal Nicole is the administrator of another primates-as-pets-pedaling-page. But it wouldn’t appear as so upon first glance. At press time, Kyndal’s most recent post is of her and a few girlfriends running into the ocean under the sunset’s glowing rays and a heavy-handed filter. The caption reads “maybe I just need to be anywhere with my besties.” Me too, Kyndal. But while scrolling through your run-of-the-mill influencer form posts from Kyndal, you’ll notice they’re jarringly broken up with videos of her pet spider monkey, Faye.

Kyndal dresses Faye up, feeds her Starbucks cake pops and posts ‘Get Ready With Me’ content—where Faye is typically zooming around in the background.

But what these videos don’t show is the cost of keeping a highly social, intelligent primate confined to a house with no companions of her species and no appropriate enrichment—playing the part of tradwife isn’t proper enrichment for a spider monkey.

Viewers might see chaos and laugh—one user comments “Love how she jumps from the ceiling.”

But behind Faye’s manic energy is a clear sign of distress. Spider monkeys are tree-dwelling primates who live in complex groups, and Faye’s erratic behavior likely reflects isolation and a lack of meaningful stimulation.

The reality is that the behavioral, emotional and biological needs of primates are completely incompatible with home life.

At Primarily Primates (PPI), the sanctuary managed by Friends of Animals, we see firsthand just how incompatible these two lifestyles are. A staggering 100 of our 199 primates at PPI are ex-pets—including lemurs, spider monkeys, capuchins, and chimps.

Take Buck, for example, a chimpanzee who was purchased as a pet when he was just two weeks of age, as most pet chimpanzee stories begin. A PLOS ONE study that investigated the primate pet trade in the U.S. and collected data from different exotic pet-trade sites, found that a staggering 78.7% of primates for sale were under a year old.

As primates outgrow their infant appeal and begin behaving like the wild animals they are, many owners find themselves unwilling or unable to meet their needs. This was true of Buck: his owner locked him in an indoor cage for close to six years.

By the time Buck first arrived at PPI, it was difficult to encourage him to accept a nutritional diet like fruits and vegetables, since he was likely fed junk food when he was a pet. Buck was also terrified of grass, since he’d lived in a cage for so long. He would crawl like a spider on his habitat barrier walls, avoiding it at all costs.

But Buck found something at PPI he’d been desperately missing in his years as a pet: community. The sweet chimpanzee Mandy became his guide to all things chimp, and today he’s grown into a dominant chimp who revels in his grassy habitat alongside Mandy, Buffy and April. Buck just needed to learn how to be a chimp again.

It’s difficult to say how many more Bucks are out there, but BornFree USA, a Texas-based primate sanctuary, estimates there could be up to 15,000 primates kept as pets in the U.S.

For every Buck who finds sanctuary, many more primates remain trapped in inappropriate, inadequate environments. A bill in Congress could change that.

The Captive Primate Safety Act (CPSA) would end the pet primate trade in the U.S., and is meant to protect both primates and the public.

The bill was first introduced by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) after the gruesome tragedy in Connecticut where a chimpanzee named Travis, who was exploited as a pet, brutally attacked Charla Nash, who was helping Travis’ owner coerce the 200-pound chimpanzee back in his cage.

Nash survived but had to endure face and hand transplant surgery. Travis was killed by an officer at the scene.

“The Captive Primate Safety Act is meant to protect humans and primates. Primates are not meant to be pets or playthings,” Blumenthal said.

FoA was at a May event at the Capitol to raise awareness of CPSA, and will go to the wall for its passage.

But legislation moves slowly—viral videos move fast. Each new video reinforces the idea that primates belong in playrooms, not the wild. Without context, these videos sell the lie that primates make good pets.

The truth is buried off-screen, where animals like Buck spend years existing out of sight, their suffering too inconvenient to go viral.