100 men vs. 1 gorilla: The internet’s wildest debate yet

Pretend you and 99 peers had to duke it out against a gorilla. Would your squad emerge victorious? That debate has been dividing the internet over the past few days.

The conversation originally surfaced on Reddit back in 2020, when a user posed the question in the r/whowouldwin subreddit. It recently reignited after the question was put to X users last week. The viral post—now with over 288 million views—suggests that 100 men could defeat a single gorilla if everyone was “dedicated” to the task.

Since then, arguments have raged across social media. MrBeast even joined the discussion: “Need 100 men to test this, any volunteers?” he wrote, alongside a fake thumbnail for a YouTube video based on the concept.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk responded: “Sure, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Naturally, the internet had questions before picking a side. Are weapons allowed? What tactics are in play? Are we talking average guys—or 100 Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsons?

To help settle the debate, some turned to AI and gaming simulators. One viral post on X showed the gorilla dispatching 100 humans with apparent ease.

Another user “vibe coded” a custom battle in Hytopia, a free-to-play gaming world. “The gorilla won,” they added. In yet another simulation, X users took issue with the unrealistic height advantage given to the gorilla (because, of course, accuracy matters here). “The craziest thing about this trend is that it revealed how many people think gorillas are 15 feet tall,” one person commented.

A primatologist brought in by Rolling Stone quickly shut the whole thing down, calling the premise entirely unrealistic. While adult male gorillas can weigh over 400 pounds and are estimated to be four to 10 times stronger than humans, they are in fact “gentle giants” who “would avoid this conflict whenever possible,” they explained.

Still, as one X user put it: “This gorilla conversation is real interweb discussions. Not all that other tomfoolery nonsense.” And really, isn’t it nice to see the internet putting its debating skills to positive use?