I am not the kind of person who freaks out every time a dog barks out "I wuv you" or a Japanese game show features cats curling up in bowls. Animal videos are great, and definitely have a place in our Internet culture, but they aren't the entirety of what is out there, something that is hard to explain to mothers who think you post pictures of "Laughing out loud cats" for work every day.
That being said: it is imperative that everyone with a modem or WiFi connection watch this video of a penguin getting tickled.
This video has actually been cut from a longer video on Youtube that gives us a little more context. The bird's name is Cookie, and she is an adult "little penguin." Although her video has been up since last January, it was BoingBoing's discovery of the uncut clip that launched it into the viral stratosphere. To illustrate: up until 5 days ago, there were only 3 comments on the YouTube page. Now there are over 1,000.
So when your friends ask if you've seen anything good online today, you can go "Oh yeah, the ticklish penguin. Haven't you heard of it? It's great." And you can put it on your Facebook wall, Twitter feed, whatever. Go nuts. Cookie is your penguin too.
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