In the early morning hours of Friday, April 25, X user DreamChasnMike posited the outcome of a showdown between Homo sapiens sapiens and one of our closest relatives.
Or rather 100 men versus one of our fellow primates.
His premise?
"i think 100 [men] could beat 1 gorilla everybody just gotta be dedicated to the sh*t"
@DreamChasnMike/X
The post went viral with over 290 million views as of the following Friday.
Soon others were weighing in and employing AI to find an answer to this question for the ages. Some people put a lot of work into their answers.
People—men, it's mostly men—seem downright obsessed.
Is this like another Roman Empire thing?
How long have men been thinking about ganging up on a gorilla‽‽
Lots of people had thoughts on the issue.
While the human vs. gorilla fight night post went viral this week, the question has been banging around the internet for almost a decade.
It routinely gets posted in the Who Would Win subReddit, including the entry here from five years ago.
As well as popping up on Quora more than once, with entries going back at least eight years.
It's unclear if any of the people thinking they could take on a gorilla—in an unfair 100 to 1 fight—were also among the 12% of men who back in 2019 said they could easily score a point on the tennis court against Serena Williams.
But it's giving a lot of the same energy.
There are two species of gorillas in the wild at present: the western gorilla and the eastern gorilla. Each of these species is further divided into two subspecies.
The eastern gorilla species consists of the subspecies Mountain gorilla and the Eastern Lowland gorilla—also referred to as the Grauer's gorilla. The western gorilla species consists of the Cross River gorilla and the Western Lowland gorilla subspecies.
Peppermint Narwhal Creative/Facebook
The largest of the subspecies are the Eastern Lowland gorilla. Silverback males can weigh up to 400 pounds and stand between 5'5″ to 6" tall, making them, at ideal weight, the heaviest primates alive.
Silverbacks are significantly larger and stronger than human males.
Their strength-to-mass ratio is estimated to be around 10 times their body weight. They can lift massive weights, tear down trees, and possess exceptional upper body strength.
But they are generally described as gentle giants known for a peaceful and sociable nature within their family groups of up to 30 individuals. While they will display aggression when threatened, they—unlike chimpanzees—generally avoid confrontations with other gorilla groups or other species in their habitat.
Why 100 men would want to pick a fight with a gorilla might be the bigger question that needs to be answered.
