Transcript for Dance, Monkeys, Dance by Ernie Cline

There are billions of galaxies in the observable universe

And each of them contains hundreds of billions of stars

In one of these galaxies

Orbiting one of these stars

Lies a little blue planet

And this planet is run by a bunch of monkeys

Now these monkeys don't think of themselves as monkeys

They don't even think of themselves as animals

In fact, they love to list all the things that they think

separate them from the animals:

Opposable thumbs

Self-awareness

They use words like Homo Erectus and Australopithecus

You say Toe-mate-o, I say Toe-motto

They're animals all right

They're monkeys

Monkeys with high-speed digital fiber-optic technology

But monkeys nevertheless

I mean, they're clever

You've got to give them that

The Pyramids, skyscrapers, phantom jets,

the Great Wall of China

That's all pretty impressive

For a bunch of monkeys

Monkeys whose brains have evolved

to such an unmanageable size

that it's now pretty much impossible

for them stay happy for any length of time

In fact, they're the only animals that think

they're supposed to be happy

All of the other animals can just be

But it's not that simple for the monkeys

You see, the monkeys are cursed with consciousness

And so the monkeys are afraid

So the monkeys worry

The monkeys worry about everything

but mostly about what all the other monkeys think

Because the monkeys desperately want to fit in

with the other monkeys

Which is pretty hard to do

because a lot of the monkeys hate each other

This is really what separates them from the other animals

These monkeys hate

They hate monkeys that are different

Monkeys from different places

Monkeys who are a different color

You see, the monkeys feel alone

All six billion of them

Some of the monkeys pay another monkey

to listen to their problems

The monkeys want answers

and the monkeys know they're going to die

So the monkeys make up gods and then they worship them

Then the monkeys start to argue

over whose made-up god is better

Then the monkeys get really pissed off

and this is usually when the monkeys decide

that it's a good time to start killing each other

So the monkeys wage war

The monkeys make hydrogen bombs

The monkeys have got their entire planet

wired up to explode

The monkeys just can't help it

Some of the monkeys play to a sold out crowd of other monkeys

The monkeys make trophies

and then they give them to each other

Like it means something

Some of the monkeys think they've got it all figured out

Some of the monkeys read Nietzsche

The monkeys argue about Nietzsche

without ever giving any consideration to the fact that Nietzsche

was just another monkey

The monkeys make plans

The monkeys fall in love

The monkeys have sex

and then they make more monkeys

The monkeys make music

and then the monkeys dance

Dance, monkeys, dance

The monkeys make a hell of a lot of noise

The monkeys have so much potential

if they would only apply themselves

The monkeys shave the hair off of their bodies

in blatant denial of their true monkey nature

The monkeys build giant monkey hives that they call "cities"

The monkeys draw a lot of imaginary lines in the dirt

The monkeys are running out of the oil

which is what fuels their precarious civilization

The monkeys are polluting and raping their planet

like there's no tomorrow

The monkeys like to pretend that everything is just fine

Some of the monkeys actually believe that the entire universe

was created for their benefit

As you can see . . . these are some messed up monkeys

These monkeys are at once the ugliest

and the most beautiful creatures on the planet

And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys

They want to be something else

But they're not.

Captions by Harkle.com