🙉 what the f*#k are sea monkeys?!
monkey sea, monkey what it do
Before reading this newsletter, please click into your preferred streaming service and type in Young Divas, ‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’. I want this newsletter to be a magic Carpet Call ride right round the mid noughties in your Mum’s Mazda3, and nothing unlocks dormant memories quite like the dulcet tones of Kate DeAraugo.
(If you’re a bit more of an emo grl, I humbly suggest The Veronicas ‘This Love’.)
Ok so, sea monkies.
Is it sea monkies or sea monkeys? Or seamonkeys?
S-E-A-M-O…
Whatever they are, Sea-Monkeys (I Googled it) are seriously cool and totally wild.
I haven’t thought about them for at least two decades. I’ve been busy. Preoccupied. Distracted? Whatever. I have not been losing sleep over Sea-Monkeys and their genesis.
Until Friday night.
Walking home from P&V with a $33 natural wine in hand, my phone vibrated. I untangled the artesian beaded strap from my wrist and brought the phone to my face. As always, it didn’t unlock. A familiar feeling of shame flashed across my deyassified eyes. In that moment, it was confirmed: Steve Jobs fails to recognise a girl boss without her NARS Sheer Glow.
I tucked the petulant naturel rosé under my arm, punched in the passcode and popped over to my insta direct request folder. This is a chaotic space. Currently, its contents are a combination of people sending in a vegetable section rearranged to look like Shrek, and chihuahuas in diapers.
Hmm. But what was this?
I am an absolute slut for a deep dive. When a request like the above is sent, a CEO must deliver. I had no choice but to smash the wine against the gutter, fling the phone up my arm and power yeet home to my apartment for a heated sesh in the World Wide Web O’Wikipedia.
But first. The origin story.
I got my first vat of Sea-Monkeys around 2003. They were procured from The Glen, more specifically Target. I don’t think they were a birthday present or a Christmas gift, but rather a weekend treat for having made it throughout the week without pissing the bed.
I distinctly remember getting the pink (hot). When I got home and into my room, I brought in a chair from the dining room and set up shop, parking my keister on the carpet and getting to work concocting my monkeys. When I say I got ‘to work’, what I really mean is that I screamed MAAAAAAAUUUUUUUM at the top of my lungs, summoning the poor woman into my room to read the instructions and single-handedly conceive my waterborne monkeys.
I could lie and go into detail about how I nurtured my first borns, watching in awe as they flourished and thrived. But the truth is far more sinister. On day two, disaster struck. I knocked the monkey vat over. Splat. In an instant, their one chance at life was dashed. I can feel it in my bones, the panic as I watched them fall, monkeys disintegrating into grey carpet in slow motion.
It was seriously sad.
I got over it though and used the experience as a stepping stone later on, bargaining for real-life frogs which, as we know, introduced me to the concept of fluid sexuality.
As a result, I’m still yet to understand the magic of these Sea-Monkeys! And so tonight, let’s hold hands and figure out:
Ok fuck but real quick, do you remember when Coldplay made that absolutely COOKED film clip with the monkeys dancing around? It literally makes me sick, I feel my stomach flipping inside out even thinking about it. Foul.
If you, like me, assumed Sea-Monkeys were a 1990s invention, you are an absolute dill and a real silly goose!
The first recorded instance of a real-life Sea-Monkey was in the 10th century AD, in Urmia Lake, Iran. The geographer who found them described them as “aquatic dogs” but gave them the scientific name ‘Artemia’.
Then a thousand years passed. They remained in Iran and abroad, frolicking about the place, fancy and footloose, free and untapped.
Then in 1957, an entrepreneur/boyboss called Harold von Braunhut saw an opportunity.
it’s giving daddy
In the ‘50s, alien ant farms were popping off and Von Braunhut wanted a piece of that novelty pet pie. It was an obvious gravy train. And his ticket?
Fish food.
He took a trip to the local pet store (also how good am I embellishing this story) and they were selling brine shrimp – aka Artemia – as live food for fish.
Von Braunhust, an empath, saw this as an opportunity to emancipate the brine shrimp. Some would argue his motivations were purely financial, though I will argue he was a humanist and wanted nothing more than to set his precious sea monkeys free.
The challenge, now, was the figure out a way to concoct the monkeys.
This was the era of microwave meals, powdered eggs and endless possibilities. Von Braunhust enlisted marine biologist Dr. Anthony D’Agostino to create a new breed. In addition to creating the formulas for Sea-Monkey growth food and water conditioners, Dr. D’Agostino also crossbred a special hybrid species of brine shrimp that grew bigger, lived longer and were totally funky.
thick ass no breaks
This is how it works:
Hatching a tank full of Sea-Monkeys is as easy as making lemonade. All you have to do is pour an Instant-Life® packet of dried Sea-Monkey instant live eggs into some treated water, and they will hatch before your very eyes. This is possible because Sea-Monkey eggs exist in suspended animation until exposed to water. The cycle of drying and re-wetting triggers a biochemical reaction that induces the cyst-like egg casings to swell up, split and release the live baby Sea-Monkeys.
Now it was time to market these monkettes.
Advertising is endlessly interesting to me. It’s an industry of constant invention and creative innovation unless, of course, you are Frank Walker from National Tiles.
Ads give us a glimpse into the psyche of people who have lived in past times. I’d argue they are more anthropologically significant than many works of non-commercial art because they’re reflections of the wants, needs, and aspirations of generations. They inform and are informed by pop culture. I also love watching brands bust their bussy for my money.
The original art was created by comic-book illustrator Joe Orlando, who would go on to become the Vice President of DC Comics!
The strategy was to go hard in comic books. Von Braunhut is quoted as stating: "I think I bought something like 3.2 million pages of comic book advertising a year. It worked beautifully."
Is it just me, or did the 1950s have a hard-on for monkeys? When I think of that time, I think of The Monkees (a band which I’m convinced is the Aldi version of The Beatles), that Barrel of Monkeys game, those monkey biscuits in a tin kids had in America, the monkey going up into space.
This leads me to the next Sea-Monkey fact… they have also been to space!
NASA is full of nerds who love taking animals into outer space. And during one of John Glenn’s Space Shuttle Discovery missions, about 400 million Sea-Monkeys accompanied the crew on their mission into outer space. They wanted to test if Sea-Monkeys could be born in space.
And guess what? They thrived. Absolutely killed it. Slayed. They actually grew bigger and faster without gravity.
To celebrate, they released a limited edition run of spaceship Sea-Monkeys.
Sea-Monkeys are amazing. If you care for them properly, they will never actually die. The average monkey has a lifespan of 1 to 2 weeks, but during those 2 weeks, the Sea-Monkeys get busy. A female monkey can produce up to 50 babies in her short life. Male Sea-Monkeys have large mating hands that are used for holding on to females while hitting that thang from the back.
But also, a female Sea-Monkey is an independent woman who can reproduce asexually as well. Don’t ask me how!
And now, to the present day. According to the official website, “Sea-Monkeys are fun lovable little creatures, relatives of brine shrimps, that are too small to hug, but are highly enjoyable!”
Somebody who agrees wholeheartedly with this is the one and only Louis Hanson.
Louis is a friend of mine and fellow Sea-Monkey enthusiast. The only difference is, he has actually cared for Sea-Monkeys.
Hanson fans will know that the monkeys offered him comfort and company during trying times.
A really beautiful story.
Thank you everybody for listening and thank you to glopez92.gl@gmail.com for requesting this investigation.
Will you buy some Sea-Monkeys after this? I won’t, because I am saving what little love I have for my future chihuahua, Chim Chim Poohie Lips.
Little yeetos.
See you next week, cuties. x
Froomey!
Thankyou for the deep dive my housemates and I can sleep again!
We may need to invest in a new house pet too
Love ya xx