Harambe- a gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo was killed because he was about to go after a child that fell into his enclosure. This potential child murderer has been glorified in social media for various reasons and frankly, I am sick and tired of it. Whenever I see a gorilla or the name "Harambe," I am triggered like basic white girl feminist and ready to rant for a solid ten minutes about this whole stupid internet culture.
In my defense the actual death of the gorilla named Harambe is unfortunate, but I would rather have the child that fell into his enclosure alive than be meat stuck in Harambe's mouth. But the public eye has decided that this gorilla is worth immortalizing on the internet!
The origin of Harambe memes has two distinct places, the African American community which used Harambe's death to spotlight racial focus on only famous ethnic people and ignore the common colored man. The other origin was with a loose group on Twitter simply called "weird Twitter" which typically makes comical and ironic memes and other jokes. While both origins are not within my sphere of caring they caused the tidal wave that became the meme phenomenon that is "Harambe."
Now Harambe is every where for things not related to the Cincinnati Zoo, gorillas, animal rights or even keeping animals in zoos. Across the internet are pictures and memorials treating Harambe like a hero, pictures of him with a folded American flag and a bullet casing, trying to synonymize Harambe with American soldiers killed in action, a family's photo set being slowly replaced by pictures of Harambe, or at least gorillas, anything that remotely had to do with a gorilla is now just "Harambe", old King Kong vs Godzilla is now Harambe saving a woman from some sort of dinosaur.
The part though that makes me most mad about the whole situation is the fact the Harambe with no real valid point to make anymore, is obscuring more important, real-world events. When Harambe was killed this last Summer in May and the immediate fall-out, backlash, backlash to the backlash and then more backlash time still continued in the rest of the world. Most prominently was the Syrian refugee crisis, families were crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe and escape the wars in the Middle East. But many were dying on the open sea, from drowning, starvation and dehydration. While American politics are raging on, verging on sad but comical, the internet is still alight with this brute animal five months after his death while focus should still be on potential other candidates aside from the liar and the jerk. I still see more of Harambe in social media then I do the fallout from hurricane Mathew that hit Haiti and south east America.
When someone I know says lets do something "Harambe" related I grind my teeth to prevent myself from doing the Batman slap to a proverbial Robin. When I see someone posting "DicksoutforHarambe" I want to castrate them. (Not really but really.) If your going to go out in public with your genitals hanging out of your pants like a toddler then at least have a more important reason than a now dead gorilla that has no real reason for being around anymore than for you to show off your penis; keep it in your pants!
Rant satisfied.
Remember guys there are more important things happening that a dead gorilla, five-hundred years ago that was probably dinner.
