My daughter’s obsession with capybaras began about six months ago. One day she was drawing mushrooms with cat ears, the next she was drawing capybaras and only capybaras. She watches videos of capybaras. She sings the capybara song. She purchased a capybara stuffie that is also, improbably, a burger. She taped a piece of notebook paper to her wall that reads:
How to be happy:
Step 1. Move to New York
Step 2. Get a capybara
Step 3. Enjoy.
If you don’t know what a capybara is, you likely have been living off the grid, far from gift shops, toy stores, and the reach of social media. These giant South American rodents with their wiry brown fur and delightfully Zen expressions are literally everywhere. They’re on top of pens. They’re on T-shirts. They’re saying ‘Capy Birthday’. They’re balancing a yuzu on their head. They’re starring in the Oscar-winning animated movie Flow (must see!). They’re on a nightlight, a notebook, a pair of pajamas. They’re on TikTok riding on top of an alligator. They’re a cultural phenomenon.
I met my first capybaras in 2002 on the banks of the Beni River in Bolivia, long before they found fame. It’s easy to see the appeal. They’ve got the face of a beaver, a pig-like body, feet like a duck, and fur like the husk of a coconut. But it’s their expression that has made them so beloved. Their long-lashed, half-closed eyes radiate serenity.
Exactly how capybaras catapulted into stardom isn’t clear. My trainer’s daughter, who is 7, has a theory that the capybara’s appearance the 2014 movie Rio 2 was the turning point. The internet seems to suggest that they started gaining popularity slightly earlier in Asia. In the US, however, the craze is only a couple of years old. Last year, the Washington Post interviewed Sharon Price John, CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop. “The capybara was one you could see coming,” she said. “It was starting to get a lot of play on TikTok, and by the time we came out with the capybara, it had really gotten to be a much bigger thing. Twenty years ago, you could watch a trend roll across the country, from the coasts inward. Now, it’s nearly like a flash fire.”
It’s a fire that threatens to consume my daughter. She asked for a pet capybara for her tenth birthday. Instead I booked a ‘capybara experience’ at a nearby farm. We spent an hour feeding Jackie and Kelso (pictured above) bits of apple and sweet potato. My daughter, who had been immersed in cartoon capybaras, wasn’t quite ready for the real thing. They were more skittish than we expected, and heavier. Kelso clumsily tried to bulldoze his 125-lb body into my lap to get closer to the food and I still have bruises.
The visit didn’t put my daughter off capybaras, but it did quell her desire for the real thing. “I think I’ll stick to capybara merch,” she told me.
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Image credit: yours truly
