Coachella’s anarchic hippos are back, now as bumbling media barons

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“All Hippos, the drone is in the control room, give us your all.”

I was watching the whole thing unfold on the monitors with Vanessa from Dedo Vabo. It was surreal – this little craft was ascending into a room filled with hippos, all dressed in wrinkled suits! Apparently, they were supposed to be running a big communications company overlooking Coachella, but something clearly spooked them. They were running around their office space, which hovered above the Outdoor stage, and the crowd below was loving it – they could see the hippos scrambling around behind the glass. It was a crazy sight!

Bonet explained that hippos get stressed when confined to a small space for long periods – ‘they tend to go a little crazy,’ she said. She then used her radio to inform one hippo that its face covering had come loose, highlighting the considerable effort involved in managing the animals.

Longtime Coachella attendees were thrilled to see “Network Operations” back—the quirky installation featuring Dedo Vabo’s hippo characters. It’s a running joke that’s been happening for years where people wearing hippo masks pretend to work for slightly sinister companies on the polo fields, until everything hilariously falls apart by the end of the festival on Sunday.

What started as a quirky project in a room at the historic Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles back in 2008 has become a Coachella favorite, returning after a four-year break. Musicians from the band Die Spitz and Janelle Monáe’s team have worn the unique costumes, and they’re hoping Moby will participate this year. In previous events, the costumed performers have created elaborate storylines, including founding a power company, competing in the space race, and even crashing the stock market.

“Network Operations” feels like a throwback to the wild, free-spirited days of early Coachella, before social media influencers took over. With so much focus on powerful people and big business in Hollywood right now, it’s interesting to see these characters casually destroying equipment like a printing press and a TV studio.

Derek Doublin from Dedo Vabo explained that the hippos in their work represent a satirical take on society, using dark and absurd humor. He described the hippos as symbolizing a large, powerful, and ultimately directionless global media company – a reflection of how these organizations wield significant influence without necessarily knowing what they’re doing.

Those in charge at Skydance and Paramount might see a lot of parallels between this situation and their own experiences.

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2026-04-13 04:31