Lifestyle
How a catchy tune became the soundtrack to TikTok's silliest videos
MIDI inputs in Logic for the song Monkeys Spinning Monkeys taken from Kevin MacLeod’s Youtube channel. Unlike other artists who seek to protect the rights to their creative work, McLeod encourages anyone to use his music for free. “I just want my stuff to be heard,” he says.
Kevin MacLeod/YouTube/Screenshot for NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Kevin MacLeod/YouTube/Screenshot for NPR
Turn to TikTok for some amusement, and you’ll find short videos of a fluffy cat cuddling a fluffy dog, a toddler clutching a bag of Doritos as though it were a teddy bear, or a penguin creating flipper-print artwork.
You’ll have to turn up the volume to hear what all these posts have in common: a song created ten years ago called “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod.
Although few people know the name of the song or the person who composed it, over the past decade, it’s served as the background music for millions of TikToks and has been played billions of times. It’s also all over Instagram and YouTube.
The song’s story illustrates one of the core ways that music and social media have shaped each other over the last decade—with the proliferation of viral, loopable songs that immediately telegraph a video’s mood on digital platforms designed for ease of copying sound from video to video.
The man behind the monkeys
Kevin MacLeod is a prolific composer who got his start as a computer programmer. He created songs for fun on his computer and in front of audiences at improv comedy shows.
MacLeod’s compositions are what’s known as “library music,” stockpiles of songs that content creators draw upon to score their works. These are the sort of melodies that you would never queue up on Spotify but end up in the background of all sorts of things: video games, films, and countless short videos.
“Usually, I’ll be like watching a YouTube video and the music sucks,” says MacLeod. “And I’m like, well, let me try to do something better.”
And once he tries his hand at something better, he releases it for free.
In the early days of his career, MacLeod would craft his own licenses — not to protect his rights, but to give them away. MacLeod says his approach was to “find a license, and then do everything the opposite,” adding clauses like “you have the right to use this for your personal things. You have the right to use this commercially. You can sell this thing in another product if you want to.”
Then Creative Commons came along, standardizing royalty-free rights. While some composers and industry people argue that such sharing undermines composers’ ability to make a living, MacLeod says he just wants his work out in the world.
“I just want my stuff to be heard,” explains MacLeod. “You know, you gotta make it as easy as possible.”
Soundtracks spread with two taps of a finger
In the early days of YouTube, users posted pretty much anything regardless of copyright, says Bondy Kaye, a researcher at the University of Leeds and cofounder of the TikTok Cultures Research Network.
But with crackdowns by digital fingerprinting programs like Content ID, Kaye says people increasingly turned to royalty-free songs, including “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys.”
“And then you just follow that train as it goes all the way to TikTok,” says Kaye.
Kaye says that while YouTube lets users upload new videos, TikTok makes it easier to create videos that build off existing content with features that allow users to splice a reaction video alongside the original, take a short clip from it, or reuse the music. (Instagram also contains a similar feature.)
“So if you happen to see a viral video, with just two taps of your finger, you can create and publish a new video using that same song.”
As more people saw TikToks with “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys,” more people made TikToks with “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys,” too.
Something magical about “Monkeys”
TikTok said they couldn’t provide us with all-time numbers, but rankings by industry watchers over the last few years routinely show “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” among the most used songs on the platform. MacLeod says that out of his 2,000 compositions, “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” accounts for half of all listens.
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” contains a fluty melody and bouncy bass line— musical elements that signal “fun” to the listener.
YouTube
Even with the Creative Commons license, he’s still earned over seven figures—mostly from other countries that don’t always follow the same payment protocol.
So is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” just a song in the right place, with the right permissions, at the right time? Or is there something special about it that makes it such an appealing soundtrack for our favorite silly, joyful highlights?
“The answer is both,” jokes Paula Harper, a musicologist at the University of Chicago who writes about sound and the internet.
Harper says “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” subtly uses some classic musical references, like its booming bass line.
Musicologist Paula Harper says “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” shares some elements from classical music, like this aria by Mozart. Both songs feature a bouncy bass line that highlights the songs’ intended comic relief.
YouTube
“You can find examples going back to the 18th century where composers like Mozart are using boom, boom, boom, boom,” says Harper, mimicking the bouncing bass line, “to signify this is goofy, this is silly, this is comic relief.” For example, she points to the first aria in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, “Notte e Giorno Faticar,” when a similar baseline introduces Leporello as “the goofy comic-relief servant character.”
Then there’s a melody “that is definitely evocative of something like a calliope, like a carousel,” says Harper. A good example, she says, is the circus march “Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite,” which shares the same basic structure of a light melody on top of an alternating bass line.
The light, tinkling melody of “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” comes from computer-synthesized flutes, but evokes the same sort of carousel or circus atmosphere as songs like the march “Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite”
YouTube
When “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” comes on, Harper says people probably are not consciously thinking about old-timey circuses, and they’re definitely not thinking about Mozart. But together, the song plays on associations we already have to evoke a mood immediately.
Composer Kevin MacLeod acknowledges that “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” is musically unexceptional. “I mean, the mix isn’t particularly great. The instruments aren’t particularly great…. There’s nothing sonically interesting about it,” admits MacLeod.
But it pulls together these musical ideas in a way that lets you know what’s happening, and with – he thinks – a bit of subtlety.
“It’s not assaulting you with comedy. You know, there’s not slide whistles and train horns and cars honking,” laughs MacLeod. “People like it. People use it. And it does the thing.”
That “thing” has gone from platform to platform, cat video to cat video. And no matter what happens to TikTok, the sound of “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” will likely be stuck in our heads for years to come.
Leigh McDaniel always knew she was destined to become a witch. Growing up in Hawaii, she came from a long line of “kitchen witches,” she explains — women who intuited measurements, spices and when a cake was done from the next room. “There was always a part of me that was like: Yeah, I’m a witch,” says McDaniel from her California sun-soaked studio.
Today, McDaniel — who calls herself a “womb witch”— practices a different kind of magic: pelvic care bodywork. Based in a bright studio in Glendale, McDaniel serves clients of all genders. Before each session, McDaniel invites clients to share their personal histories, and then McDaniel performs bodywork through touch as sage smoke curls in the air.
“A person who left today had their first session and was like, ‘I’m so much lighter in my body,’” McDaniel says.
McDaniel’s work is rooted in holistic pelvic health and touch therapy, which she discovered after giving birth to her second child at age 46. Before her daughter was born, McDaniel says she met her in a dream. The child introduced herself as “Luna.” The name stuck. After her birth, McDaniel theorized that her daughter had “reorganized her pelvic bowl.” When she sought out answers from her midwife and OB-GYN, they were dismissive; the experience prompted her to explore alternative care.
“It sent me down a few rabbit holes,” McDaniel says. “Previously, I had studied naturopathy with the intention of going to a naturopathic school — herbalism, Reiki and light touch therapy.”
Leigh McDaniel says that after one session her clients often feel an immediate shift in their bodies.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
While body wisdom and alternative healing are framed as part of the Goop-conscious modern wellness movement, McDaniel explains that these practices are not new. She cites Ubuntu, a South African philosophy that informs her healing approach. “Indigenous practices knew how to hold people in trauma,” she says. “We’re only just beginning to figure it out.”
After an explanation of the nervous system, consent and the pelvic floor, her sessions begin with McDaniel burning sage or mugwort while the client is on the table. She asks for consent before touching the client and offers a prayer or blessing. McDaniel explains she’s feeling for energy before moving on to the abdomen, where she applies various levels of pressure. She compares it to a guided meditation as she incorporates breathwork while asking clients to breathe into her fingers. She emphasizes that the client controls the pace and asks for consent at each step.
“I think consent and boundaries are so critical to taking care of your body,” she says.
The intimate nature of McDaniel’s practice has garnered attention — and occasional skepticism. Comedian Ali Macofsky, for example, says with a smile, “I go in person to this womb witch,” on “The Endless Honeymoon” podcast. The hosts are baffled and intrigued. Macofsky adds, “It feels very old school the way women have to go through things.”
Macofsky discovered Leigh through actor and comedian Syd Steinberg who highly recommended her work. “I went to help with some CPTSD [complex post-traumatic stress disorder] and TMJ [temporomandibular joint] pain and she helped,” says Steinberg. “She really is a miracle worker.”
Macofsky was intrigued by the whimsical title of “Womb Witch.” “I was like, I’ll make an appointment and see what happens.” After a phone call, McDaniel explained that she helped clients with physical intimacy and sexual trauma through bodywork. The comedian was hooked.
Macofsky notes that in a culture where female pleasure is not prioritized, it’s hard to know where to seek advice. After a session with Leigh where she discussed advocating for oneself sexually, Macofsky began to see the results take hold in surprising ways. “It’s helping me in other areas where normally I’d be uncomfortable to advocate for myself or speak up about what I want.”
Clients seek out the womb witch for a variety of reasons. Some report physical discomfort during sexual encounters, while others come after experiencing sexual assault, abuse or consent violation. At other times, clients may experience stiffness or pain that McDaniel believes may be a reaction to trauma.
Her session also focuses on sexual health. McDaniel gives her clients a tutorial on pleasure anatomy and consent, most recently teaching sexual health lessons to a gathering in Silver Lake. “I like to show a lot about the pleasure anatomy, the mobility of the uterus, and where the cervix is at different times of the month,” she explains.
McDaniel argues that pleasure is an important part of daily life. “Female pleasure is finally being noticed,” she says. “Pleasure is a birthright. There’s pleasure and there’s grief. To be full-spectrum humans, we need to be feeling pleasure.” McDaniel cites that recent studies claim the clitoris has 10,000 nerve endings.
Leigh McDaniel holds a bowl of coconut and castor oil that she often uses with clients.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
McDaniel says that everyday stress — including sexual harassment and misogyny — manifests in the body, often leading to chronic pain. “In patriarchy, the comments land in your body, and you find yourself bracing every time you pass them,” she says. “They can seem so small and harmless, but even those little things add up. They’re felt. It’s part of feeling unsafe in the world.”
Though many people struggle to navigate the American healthcare system, more Americans are turning to a spiritual wellness approach. The National Institutes of Health reports that holistic care methods such as meditation, acupuncture and yoga have grown significantly in recent years. Ancient Chinese medicine techniques have gone viral on TikTok, capturing the attention of Gen Z. “People are more willing to look outside the Western medicine model,” McDaniel explains. “I have people that come here to see me because of medical trauma too.”
Dr. Tanaz R. Ferzandi, director of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery at Keck Medicine of USC, believes that holistic medicine can be a potent adjunct to more traditional remedies. She has recommended acupuncture to her patients who have experienced sexual trauma. “The whole idea of acupuncture is you’re lying there, and coming to peace with yourself and your body,” she explains. “It’s a forced therapy where you can be alone with yourself and shut out the rest of the world.”
Simultaneously, Ferzandi believes a healthy amount of skepticism is good. “We have to stay scientific — what’s the evidence behind it? As long as women understand that we don’t know if there’s data to support some of the things they’re doing,” she says. “I’m very cautious about touting certain things that are somehow going to be a panacea.”
McDaniel’s explains its rare she encounters skeptics at her practice. “I never try to convince anyone to come in for a session,” she says. “There are scientific studies on the efficacy of different types of work that are adjacent to, or similar to what I do, but nothing exact.”
She acknowledges elements of her work are difficult to quantify. “There is also a mysterious space between bodies, the client and myself, where something happens that I cannot really explain, but it feels magical,” she says. “I don’t think any of this would convince anyone who is inherently skeptical though.”
McDaniel views her daughter Luna’s birth as the inciting incident into her true calling — becoming the “Womb Witch.” “Everything that happened to my own body after her birth, it was a calling to do this,” she says. “I’ve done so many things, and this is the first time I really feel settled in what I do.”
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
Other things worth knowing about:
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
-
Technology1 minute agoThe Govee smart lamp brightened up my room, and then my life
-
World7 minutes agoLatin American leftists met in Spain, signaling push against US influence on continent
-
Politics13 minutes agoParents in Bronx neighborhood plead for NYPD guard as Mamdani cuts cops, halts hires: ‘Horrible situation’
-
Health19 minutes agoThis common habit could be quietly hurting men’s fertility, experts warn
-
Sports25 minutes agoWave of WWE superstars depart company after WrestleMania 42
-
Technology31 minutes agoAmazon just put Elon Musk’s Starlink on notice
-
Business37 minutes agoWhile California’s tourism rallied, L.A. faced its worst year since the pandemic
-
Entertainment43 minutes agoStagecoach 2026: How to watch Saturday’s livestream with Lainey Wilson, Bush, Teddy Swims, Pitbull and more