At 11:30 pm, Vishesh Anand and Kavisha Chawla’s cocktail party was winding down. Their guests were at the finish line of a marathon March wedding in Udaipur, planning to retreat to their hotel rooms to get some sleep before checking out the next morning. Just then, to everyone’s shock, a large gorilla made its way to the dance floor. “It was like taking 10 espresso shots,” says Chawla, describing how quickly the party was revived; even elderly guests were on their feet, dancing with the man in the gorilla suit until 3am. “It was very shocking to see older people vibing with the gorilla because it was a new concept for them. For us, it was normal because we had seen a lot of reels like this,” says Anand.
An Indore-based jeweller, Anand is referring to the dancing-gorilla trend. First observed on TikTok, it has now found its way into the country’s fourth-largest industry: the big, fat Indian wedding. This is no fluke. India’s wedding industry has become a content farm, and Instagram is ground zero. Now, even ordinary couples want their special day to make a splash online and are paying wedding content creators lakhs for it. The latest hack for virality: a dancing gorilla.
In Delhi’s Sultanpuri, Manoj Kumar’s mascot entertainment company, Gori Boy Events, has become the poster boy (or gorilla) of this trend. “The DJ happened to play ‘Laila Mein Laila’ at a wedding we had booked in February, and my employee in a gorilla suit gave a power-packed performance. I filmed a video of him dancing and added my contact number when I posted it online. In 24 hours, I got a million views,” Kumar says proudly. Today, that reel has 13 million views and Kumar’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing since.
“It’s been on everyone’s feed. Anyone planning an occasion is getting tagged by their friends in comments saying, ‘If the gorilla is not coming, I’m not coming,’” says Ayushi Gupta, a community manager at The Economic Times in Faridabad, who is set to marry in April. Gupta’s friends have also been urging her to book a gorilla performer for an event but she isn’t able to; her destination wedding at Dehradun already comes with logistical challenges. Her enthusiasm, however, didn’t go unnoticed. One of Gupta’s friends arranged for a surprise performance at the bachelor party she was co-hosting with her fiancé. “Although I was drunk, my instant reaction was, ‘This is great content. I’m going to utilise it as much as I can,’” Gupta laughs, as her gorilla reel continues to log upwards of 114K views. For ₹3,000, a performer and two assistants showed up at 9:30pm and entertained 30 adults for three hours. “I told my friend I’d pay twice as much if they’re able to bring this to Dehradun.”
