Harambe the gorilla has stormed the internet once again, exactly a year after he was shot dead by zoo staff when a child fell into his cage.

The Western lowland gorilla became famous worldwide after he was killed out of fear he might harm the boy, who he had fished out of the moat separating his enclosure from the public.

It was a sensitive issue – raising questions about whether we should keep animals in captivity and how we should treat them if we do.

But it became much more than that, ending up the biggest meme of the past year.

The movement started off with a genuine outpouring of grief, with animal rights groups picketing the zoo and people leaving tributes at shrines.

But Harambe, 17, mutated into a political symbol, a meme, a punchline recognised by anyone with access to a computer.

And just in case you thought people had forgotten him, the deluge of tweets sharing his name once again is here to prove otherwise.

Cincinnati Zoo itself isn’t joining the memorialising, saying they don’t plan any public events to mark the one-year anniversary – or #Harambeversary if you spend too much time online.

But Harambe as a pop culture phenomenon is here to stay. The meme grew into something far bigger than the original story, upsetting though it was.

The story had such an impact partly because there were so many visuals available. TV channels showed footage of the child falling into the moat and Harambe reaching for him, allowing people to broadcast their own judgments on whether his death was justified.

It crossed over from social media into real life, with people trying to sell Harambe merchandise and some getting tattoos in commemoration.

People even wrote ‘Harambe’ on their ballot papers in the US election – possibly in numbers so high they could have swung the result.

Some claimed the political connection went further, inventing far-fetched conspiracies that people high up in government must have wanted him dead.

Most of the posts were in good humour, but there was a dark side to the meme too, with some racist Twitter accounts and alt-right groups co-opting it.

One American university banned Harambe jokes because some of the ‘crude’ memes were seen as ‘micro-aggressions’ to black students.

The university also took issue with the mutation of the meme to become ‘D*cks out for Harambe’, where internet users offered to honour the slain primate by getting their genitals out.

Students were told that ‘hashtags which encourage the exposition of body parts (…) are sexual assault incidences.’

Cincinnati Zoo had to shut down its Twitter account for two months as they were sent a barrage of memes asking them questions about Harambe.

Today they faced yet more tweets asking why they hadn’t mentioned him.

One full year since his death might draw an end to the chapter, although many insist he will live on.

He was a magnificent animal, and one of the strangest chapters of the last twelve months.

RIP Harambe.

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Jen Mills

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