Harambe — To Gaze Upon a Star
To say that 2016 was a bad year for celebrity deaths is an understatement.
David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, and Muhammad Ali were among the shining stars that dimmed in what many would call an objectively bad year. But in a tragic turn of events at the Cincinnati Zoo on May 28th, a star was born in death — a 17-year-old gorilla by the name of Harambe.
What happened after Harambe’s passing is a testament to the tsunami of mindless nonsense that the noble citizens of the internet are capable of stirring up at a moment’s notice. The next day, a petition titled “Justice for Harambe” on Change.org gained over 338,000 signatures. Hashtags like #JusticeForHarambe and #RIPHarambe began popping up all over social media and the world was set aflame with a firestorm of spicy memes mourning the death of the gorilla.
But who was really mourning? You would be hard pressed to make the argument that the thousands of people online saying “Dicks out for Harambe” were suggesting doing so as an honest tribute to Harambe’s memory. Or to narrow my focus a little, that the Ryerson students who attended the Harambe candle light vigil on campus were sincerely honouring the gorilla.
While I don’t think that there is anything explicitly wrong with people having fun with the whole situation in the way they did, and I’m sure that many would genuinely say that it was a tragedy that Harambe had to die, let’s consider those who were feeling real pain during this whole fiasco. The Cincinnati Zoo quickly became a target of trolls and HJWs (Harambe Justice Warriors) alike; after months of daily bombardment by memes and insensitive comments on its social media, the zoo decided to delete its Twitter account in late August. Thane Maynard, director of the Cincinnati Zoo, spoke negatively about the whole situation: “We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe. Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us.” For the zookeepers, Harambe’s death was losing a member of their family, not a reason to Photoshop Tom Hank’s face onto a gorilla.
Why did Harambe become such an internet sensation? The extraordinary circumstances of his death were enough to break into the news conventionally, but what fueled the collective hysteria that immortalized the gorilla? One could argue that the seeming injustice of the situation was enough to get the ball rolling on hashtags like #JusticeForHarambe, but how did we get from that to #DicksOutForHarambe? While I think the answer to these questions has a lot to do with things like the internet’s tendency to bandwagon over anything remotely sensational, the prevalence of social justice in the cultural zeitgeist, and the frenzied state of the world surrounding the U.S. elections, it seems to me like there was one aspect of Harambe that made all the jokes okay. That he was just a gorilla.
Death is a sad, sensitive subject. Almost everybody has experienced the feeling of loss, to varying degrees, when someone they knew or cared about passed away. David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, and Muhammad Ali were all figures that had entertained and inspired people across the world. When each of them passed, the world mourned, honoured, and remembered them online with sincerity. To make a joke about someone’s death is a social faux-pas, and a quick way to label yourself as someone insensitive and maybe even heartless. I don’t think the same rules apply when it’s a gorilla. When I think of gorillas, things like King Kong or Planet of the Apes come to mind. Or maybe someone in a gorilla suit trying to scare people. Funny, happy things, as opposed to thoughts like them being an endangered species. Culturally, it seems like we’ve anthropomorphized gorillas to the point of insignificance. Writing this, I wonder if the same tidal wave of memes would have flooded popular culture if Harambe was an elephant or rhino. I honestly don’t think so. When Cecil the lion was killed by Walter James Palmer on July 1st, 2015, the internet reacted, but not like it did with Harambe. I feel like very simple things, such as the way his name sounds or how gorillas look made him ripe for the internet’s picking.
When you step back from the insanity of the entire situation and think about what went on, millions of people laughed and joked about the death of an animal. One that had a family of people who cared about him, who were subsequently forced offline to shield themselves from the barrage of memes. It seems kind of cruel when I think about it now, but at the time I will admit that it was funny watching the whole thing go down. While I wasn’t one to incessantly spout off Harambe jokes, I think the mob-mentality of the internet swept me up in it as it did with many others. Which really is a shame, because at the end of the day none of the memes or jokes made about Harambe made the situation any better for the people who actually cared about him. Harambe was just a gorilla, but he now holds a place in history as an internet sensation. RIP.
What’s your opinion on the whole Harambe meme sensation? Let me know in the comments, if you want.
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