How the Harambe meme has been appropriated by the people it once mocked
The evolution of memes into mainstream social media is a strange phenomena that I feel is not often explored into great detail. This is probably because memes are still not quite understood by some people, and this is fair because not everyone grew up with 4Chan, forum culture, tumblr, reddit, and twitter culture, which is usually where memes tend to originate from. But their social impact is often felt, and while memes seem to come and go (surprise bitch, I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me) some last longer than others.
It’s hard to define what a meme is, and not many people seem to understand it from its current dictionary definition of “an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.” To put it simply: a meme is a visual entity which is collectively modified in script within communities, often used as an “inside joke”. However the spread of memes is so global now that this inside joke becomes part of visual culture in its own right.
They started as silly gags documenting social awkwardness (see awkward penguin) or inappropriate jokes about that one section of 4chan you always heard of but never dared to venture into (see peadobear). Nowadays they tend to be social documentations and commentary on how people live in this day and age and how we would react to social situations.
With the growing accessibility to the internet across America and Europe, there has been a steady amplification of online accessibility within marginalised communities, and with this growth in accessibility the meme phenomena has evolved more and more into a mode of satirical protest, documenting issues of race, gender, sexuality, and so forth.
One of the genres we mainly see on Twitter nowadays is memes of POC activism humour, which, are intended as inside jokes among people of colour, often pointing to white stereotypes, such as unseasoned food, the “I want to talk to the manager” haircut, and now Pray for Harambe.
You might remember the shooting of the gorilla Harambe from Cincinnati Zoo in June. Race was such an important issue in this story, because instead of feeling grateful about the survival of a young black child who almost got killed by a gorilla, most of white social and news media screamed how horrible it was that this dangerous animal had to die so that a black child could be saved. Yet none of these news outlets and profiles have so much as typed “BLM” in a status box and clicked “post” since the inception of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. With this simple analysis of the social media trend of “white mourning”, the #PrayForHarambe meme was born, as a satirical alternative to #BlackLivesMatter.
It was a funny and pretty accurate commentary for what was going on, and prevailed for a long time within twitter and tumblr. People were designing stereotypically white eulogies, making memorial montages of Harambe on youtube, using the infamous French flag filter over Harambe’s pictures, and including him in tribute art for Michael Jackson and Prince.
This nuanced commentary was generally ignored or not understood by white people. However, in recent days the meme has transgressed to a level of irony that is too mind boggling to comprehend, due to the lack of understanding by white people on social media.
It has now evolved to #DicksOutForHarambe. A further satire of how white social and news media deals with tragedy, vanity charity memes or challenges (I hope and assume, at least). This meme phenomena can be traced back to the “NOH8” campaign, with the more recent installments of this genre being the #ALSIceBucketChallenge and the #BeCarefulWhoYouBully challenge. Allegedly, the creator of this development of the meme is twitter “Harambe activist” @sexualjumanji , which again, allegedly, was then stolen by MTV comedian Brandon Hardwell.
The problematic nature of this specific development of the meme is such a clear metaphor for the appropriation of black culture it almost hurts my head just to think about it. The meme has taken off among straight white men all over social media, and, if that wasn’t enough, white people are now making t-shirts and mugs of the meme, profiting from its development. While white men are battling over whose creative property the #DicksOutForHarambe meme is, no one seems to be acknowledging the history of the Harambe meme, or even understanding why this meme was necessary in the first place.
It is becoming a perfect metaphor for the current state of discourse on cultural appropriation. White people don’t seem to understand the context of the situation and just see it as a random funny meme, when it’s really so much more than that at this point. It’s a piece of satirical commentary that has undergone a mind-boggling, but very educational transformation about the state of communication within the current discourse of modern racism.
The reason why it has taken this weird turn in the first place, is because the standard reaction to someone discussing meme ownership is “chill, it’s just a meme”, and also because memes inherently adopt an “open source” approach to their evolution. Memes have a place in modern visual culture, they’re viral and are more visible than any political art piece in a gallery or on a mural. Memes are becoming such an integral part of contemporary culture that they should be analysed as an art form that was born out of societies and groups built within a virtual space. Their use for protest has become a new kind of guerilla art (no pun intended) in the face of the politically tense atmosphere of recent years.
While humour is a big part of what makes a meme viral, it shouldn’t be discredited as a form of protest comedy. It should also be consumed with as much nuance as is necessary for it to be produced. The white bastardisation of this meme is a trend in culture that is all too common for people who are socially aware of the discussion of cultural appropriation and the current state of racism in America.
