Harambe: How the Death of a Gorilla Got Turned into an Internet Sensation

Why Harambe became a meme that dominated conversations on social media for months, and why it matters

The Backstory

On May 28th, 2016 the 17 year old Gorilla Harambe was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo after picking up and dragging a 3 year old who climbed into the Gorilla’s enclosure. Footage of the incident surfaced online and sparked outrage by some over the alleged negligence of the parents and the zoo’s decision to shoot and kill Harambe. But most recognized it as an unfortunate tragedy. What should have been a temporary news story turned into a collection of memes and hashtags that have continued to circulate widely on social media.

Why Harambe?

The fact that Harambe was turned into a meme in the first place is not surprising. I think the novelty and atypical aspects of the incident amounted to an increased amount of news attention given to the story. Additionally, the controversial nature surrounding the decision to kill Harambe meant that everyone had an opinion and many individuals and organizations took to social media to voice that opinion. As more information and conversations about the incident spread on social media, Harambe quickly became an easy target for the creation of new memes.

What is more shocking about Harambe’s development into an Internet meme is the length of time that Harambe has remained popular. In the current social media environment, people become fixated on an event or an image for a day or 2 weeks and then the trend fades away as a new obsession arises. However, it has been almost 6 months since the death of Harambe, and he continues to be the subject of daily social media posts and conversation.

Part of what makes Harambe such a popular subject of memes is the inherent lack of a message. As a image, Harambe is defined only by its ability to be replicated. When defining a meme, the scholar Richard Dawkins states that it is a cultural signifier that spreads simply because it is good at spreading. With the addition of a few words or a sentence, Harambe’s picture can be constructed into whatever message or joke imaginable.

In some ways, Harambe’s meme-ability reminds me of Grumpy Cat, a cat who’s facial expression appears permanently grumpy. After a single picture was posted of the cat online, the Internet became fixated on the cat’s appearance and social media was overtaken by Grumpy Cat memes. As pictures of animals that don’t really convey an inherent message, both Grumpy Cat and Harambe were images that could easily be captioned to serve any number of purposes.

Originally, I saw many social media posts that actually used Harambe’s picture or tweets with #Harmabe or #RIPHarmabe to comment on the incident. But after a few weeks, when individuals used a picture of Harambe for a meme or referenced him on social media, they were no longer referencing the gorilla Harambe who was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo. They were now referencing Harambe the meme: an image that is meaningless on its own, but that has been given new meanings as it’s been repurposed continuously by social media users.

I started seeing Instagram photos that featured normal, cute pictures of my friends that had no actual connection or reference to Harambe, but that featured captions such as “Poured a drink for Harambe” or “This one goes out to Harambe.” Just this past weekend I received a Facebook invite to a holiday themed party and the cover photo for the event was an image from the movie Mean Girls. The hosts of the event photoshopped their faces onto 3 of the girls, and put Harambe’s face on the last body. These kinds of meaningless uses of Harambe are what contributed to the extended lifespan of Harambe jokes on social media.

Through the creation and sharing of these memes, individuals have entered into networked collectivism, which the scholar Nancy Baym describes as a loose participation in a shared online experience that remains distinct from the formation of online communities. As individuals entered into this collective experience of making and sharing these memes, social media quickly became dominated by Harambe.

The success and popularity of Harambe memes is largely due to a combination of the general spreadability of memes and platform affordances of various social media. Like many memes, Harambe memes thrive on a lack of information — the faster you can grasp the point, the higher the chance it will spread. Most of the memes are created to be funny, so the easier and faster they can be understood, the better.

Platform affordances of various social media such as sharing, hashtags, and trending topics also provided Harambe memes a level of visibility that lead them to become internet sensations. In the days following Harambe’s death, various hashtags began trending on Twitter, such as #JusticeforHarambe. Some individuals used the hashtag in association with a petition that aimed to hold the boy’s parents accountable for the incident, while others added it to the end of their tweets to increase the number of likes and Retweets.

What’s interesting about the fascination with a meme such as Harambe, is not only the variety of memes created using Harambe, but also the motivations behind creating these memes. Many memes were created with the intent to take part in the collective experience surrounding Harambe’s internet fame, for the humorous aspect, or simply because of the likelihood that one’s Harambe meme could go viral. But for others, creating and sharing the memes was a way to make fun of people who take up random causes such as this one and actively participate in the movement on social media.

Regardless of the intentions behind posts and memes about Harambe, each one only helped spread the conversation further. The more the memes spread, the more idealized Harambe became, and for some, he became a legend and an icon.

The Negative Consequences of Harambe Going Viral

An unusual and important part of the popularity of Harambe memes is how they have crossed into the mainstream. In the week following the 2016 presidential election, various articles circulated claiming that Harambe had received between 11,000–15,000 write-in votes. However, articles since then have revealed that these claims were false. Although official vote counts were never released stating the number of write-in votes Harambe received, he certainly was written down on some ballots. Unfortunately, I happen to know several people who voted for Harambe.

As alarming as this is, the fact that these false claims also contributed to an extensive circulation of fake news is also cause for alarm. Fake news has recently become a popular topic of discussion and source of anxiety. While some people may have immediately concluded that the news stories about write in Harambe votes were false, the immense popularity of Harambe on the Internet made the story believable to others. Not only were the articles spread on social media, but they also led many people to tweet about how many votes Harambe got and spread the false claims even further.

Like many jokes and memes that get shared on the Internet, some used Harambe memes to spread explicit racism and hate. In one instance, social media trolls created memes and sent direct messages to the Twitter account of the actress Leslie Jones (one of the main characters in the new Ghostbusters movie) that compared her physical appearance to Harambe. It also sparked a lot of hate for the boy’s parents, pertaining to their alleged negligence in watching over the 3 year old child. The extended shelf life of Harambe jokes online meant that it was only a matter of time that the dark humor of these jokes be turned into more malicious weapons of hate.

The Bottom Line

Memes cannot be dismissed as purely entertainment or harmless internet content. As evidenced by the popularity of Harambe memes and hashtags, memes can take over the Internet and dominate conversation. They can be used to spread innocent humor and personal opinions, but they can also be used to spread hate.

Memes are no longer isolated to discussions on social media. The popularity of Harambe memes became so widespread that they entered into the mainstream news and conversations. Racist Harambe memes and the fact that Harambe’s popularity led to the creation and spread of false news show that online and social media trends are having direct effects offline and on everyday life.

In the social media environment that exists today, there’s no telling what news story or image will become the next big Internet craze. But hopefully the Internet will soon see the end of the endless Harambe references and memes on social media.