Trinidad and Tobago has finally made it onto popular TikTok geo influencer Jose Monkey’s list of countries he was tasked to find.
Jose Monkey is a geo influencer who as a hobby in which he searches for clues of a location where user-submitted videos were recorded.
“This brings the list of countries I’ve found so far to 47,” he said after finding T&T in his latest search.
A man standing in the car park of Brentwood Mall, Chaguanas, recorded a video at night asking the influencer to find him earlier this week.
“Find me Jose Monkey,” the man, identified as Roshan Avinash or King Avinash on TikTok, said.
“For each video, I explain my approach to figuring out that specific location, and I talk about what information and tools I used to do it. These videos have been seen by millions of people around the world,” he said on his website’s bio.
In this almost four-minute-long video, Jose Monkey’s first clues were the signs that showed him that motorists at that location drive on the left. He also knew which country’s signposts were striped.
“The first country that came to mind for me that has black and white striped posts was Peru,” he explained.
But he was able to rule that country out since the language on the signs was in English (Give Way) and the Trinidad and Tobago’s licence plates look different.
“Some English-speaking countries use the word yield, like here in the United States, but many others use the phrase Give Way instead,” the influencer said.
Jose Monkey added that Wikipedia had a list of countries that use different terms and matched up the design. Countries such as Tanzania, the United Kingdom and The Bahamas use this phrase but he narrowed his search by looking at countries that drive on the left and their licence plates.
“It didn’t take too long to find out that Trinidad and Tobago was a good candidate,” he said.
In the video, the man pans past an Excellence Stores branch that wasn’t clear. Jose Monkey said a quick Google search of “Excel Stores” helped him with his answer. He was also able to point out exactly where King Avinash was standing.
The geo influencer has 1.6 million followers on TikTok and the T&T’s video, posted on Wednesday, had already gotten over 50,000 views.
Trinbagonians flooded the comments soon after. One poster named Andrew described Jose Monkey as second to none, while Newton said this search really showed his talent.