Behind @Hyraxhub

In 2023, hyraxes were an extremely niche animal with very little awareness surrounding their existence. A viral post about a hyrax sitting on a pot, or a hyrax screaming into the night would be met with questions about the unknown animal. Meanwhile, people would lament dassies (a South African term for hyrax) breaking into their yards and eating their plants, or others might discuss the best ways of cooking the animals.

Whenever I would search for “Hyrax,” the results would be sparse and unappreciated.

So I posted a few photos that I turned into hyrax memes, a few videos that I recorded myself, and reached out to hyrax owners to share their videos on my account. All of this was on my hyrax instagram, with a couple that I might share to my hyrax subreddit.

Note: I love sharing videos from other hyrax videographers, but I ensure that I secure rights to any video shared on Hyraxhub, have permission to share the video, and I will not upload it in a way to directly compete with the author.

An era of hyrax meme accounts.

It wasn’t too long before other hyrax meme accounts emerged as well! @Hyraxheaven posted her first hyrax meme in January of 2024 and some of her memes blew up thanks to her sense of humor. Those memes did so well, in fact, that several more hyrax accounts popped up soon afterwards. The picture above is a glimpse of some notable accounts on May of 2024.

By early March, hyraxes were seen as something beyond the forgettable rodent-like creatures they were once labeled as. They were instead given the humorous title of vile beasts with insurmountable power and viciousness.

Still later, even some non-hyrax accounts such as @Gopherit_Apparel shared his take on the vile beasts, adding notions of psionic energy being fed between hyraxes in the IRS. There was a steadily building culture around the absurd natures of these seemingly benign animals. An environment that would precipitate a massive moment for the hyrax world.

“WAWA,” the sound of a hyrax who would change their reputation forever.

In October 2024, I posted this first screaming hyrax video to the internet. It was a small clip that I cut and edited for my own hyrax Instagram. Little did I know that this clip would be shared FAR beyond Instagram. This became the single most popular hyrax video in the world, suddenly surging interest in the once-unknown animal! People reposted it all across Reddit, across X, on Tiktok, and I even found people reposting it onto Instagram itself.

Nevertheless, thousands of new hyrax fans were minted in weeks. Videos that once reached thousands of people were suddenly reaching millions and countless people found love for these obscure animals. This helped creators such as Saudi Arabia’s Abo Assaf, whose formerly obscure videos of a screaming hyrax at his ranch suddenly blew up in popularity, or creators such as Darren Collins, who saw his videos of Squiggy suddenly reaching thousands of people.

I began working with Abo, purchasing videos from him to share on my own Instagram, and saw thousands of people excited about the “new wawa” videos dropping whenever he filmed one.

Despite everything, Hyraxes were becoming more and more popular than I ever dreamed possible. I didn’t care about the multiple $hyrax and $wawa coins popping up with my art and photos, or the AI conspiracy theory videos that made the hyraxes look like monsters. I cared more about the fact that hyraxes were becoming widespread and popular.

With newfound hype in hyrax screams subsiding, it gave me time to work with people and organizations such as DAKTARI Bush School & Wildlife Orphanage to share their hyrax Câline. Meanwhile, Darren Collins began to create hyrax calendars and merch for his own late Squiggy, who was suddenly much more popular than she was prior to 2023.

This helped people see that hyraxes were more than just angry gophers, but sweet little animals who could coexist with humans.

BS With Fur

In 2026, @Fukusuke0901 , the Japanese owner of Chiroru the hyrax, saw one of their videos blow up when a commenter @_antonin_dvorak_ described Chiroru as “being a random fucking thing”, and @9millimemer called Chiroru “Just some bullshit with fur.”

This created the second big surge in hyrax searches, to the point where people on Reddit made fun of the ubiquity of these comments. Hyraxes suddenly transformed from “vile beasts” into “default mammals,” bringing new, but somewhat misplaced, awareness to the animal.

Today, Hyraxes are still a niche internet animal, but with significantly more awareness from several very different circles on the internet.

They are popular with naturalists and zookeepers. Building up hyraxes is making them more popular at zoos around the country, and animal ambassadors everywhere understand the new love for these once-disregarded animals.

They are also featured in the Bible several times, notable for their wisdom and are protected from our consumption. Christian groups are able to enjoy the animals, and even found ways of selling hyrax-related books in their local churches.

Finally, they are seen as “autistic-coded,” with Redditor’s relating to the loud little creature who disobeys social contracts and looks a little scruffy and silly 100% of the time.