TikTok is losing it over real-life octopus cities

Remember when the internet cried actual tears for an anglerfish earlier this year? Now, TikTok has a new deep-sea obsession.

Brought to light by creator and wildlife biologist Josh Allyn, TikTok has recently discovered “Octopolis” and “Octlantis”—two real underwater sites off the coast of Australia where gloomy octopuses have been quietly building their own cities and complex societies.

“I’m kinda pissed right now. Was nobody going to tell me that octopuses are creating their own underwater cities?” he said in a video posted last week. It has since gone viral with 13 million views at the time of this writing. “I had to find out through Instagram Reels. What the hell.”

This isn’t a new discovery. Once thought to be solitary creatures, gloomy octopuses (named for their downcast eyes rather than their mood) were first seen living communally in 2009, when diver Matthew Lawrence discovered the original octopus “city” in Jervis Bay, Australia. Home to 16 octopuses, it was dubbed “Octopolis.”

Then, in 2017, Lawrence and a group of researchers discovered another site with a similar social arrangement of gloomy octopuses that was located only a few hundred meters from “Octopolis.” They dubbed it “Octlantis.”

At both sites, octopuses were observed sculpting dens from piles of clam and scallop shells, socializing, bickering, and even “evicting” one another. As one Reddit user joked in a 2022 thread about the phenomenon: “Octopus landlords? Octopus rent? Octopus homeowner associations? I swear, if octopi reinvent capitalism, I’ll be so disappointed.”

Now that TikTok has discovered these octopus cities, the content writes itself. As well as being fodder for AI slop, some have turned the cephalopods’ society into viral skits. “You’re soooo early. We just learned about Octopolis,” one user commented under comedian Vinny Thomas’s post. “I can’t wait to understand this in 30 minutes.”

So why is something discovered over a decade ago trending again now? Thomas has a theory: “We’re all in this moment fixating on it because we’re so desperate. We’re so desperate to imagine that there’s a society somewhere where they’ve got it all figured out,” he explained in another post. “The octopuses are just down there butt-ass naked, eating crabs, living it up. Meanwhile, we are not doing great. I think we are just desperate for that little ounce of hope.” He added: “Maybe it’s alright with the octopuses.”

Still, in the era of generative AI and “AI slop,” some viewers—scarred by past hoaxes like Trampoline Bunny-gate—want hard evidence before getting emotionally attached to Octopolis and Octlantis.

Good news: This time, the octopus cities are very real.