After May 28th, 2016, an event occurred that captured the nation's attention and changed the face of the internet forever. The subject? Not politics. Not a celebrity snafu. Not a sporting event.
A gorilla.
Harambe, the 17 year old, 440 pound gorilla residing at the Cincinnati zoo was shot and killed after three-year-old boy climbed over the enclosure wall and fell into his moat. Expectedly, this sparked a heated discussion across all news and social outlets about animal cruelty, animal rights, and debates on whom to place the blame, the parents for not stopping their child, the zoo official for taking the shot, or the gorilla for acting like a gorilla? Most stories like this have a "flash in the pan" effect and dissipate quickly (Cecil the Lion, Kendall Jones, Rebecca Francis) but Harambe caught on and became an almost overnight internet sensation.
By May 30th, the YouTube video of Harambe's death had over 12.6 million views, a Reddit post about the incident had reached the front page of /r/news, and #JusticeforHarambe and #RIPHarambe began circulating Facebook and Twitter.
But this was just the beginning....
Harambe seemed to transcend himself from that point as he exploded on to the meme scene, becoming the internet's new obsession. On July 2nd, comedian Brandon Wardell tweeted a photo of himself with a mock pistol with the caption "“We comin with them d*cks out to avenge harambe!!!” The exclamation, "d*cks out for Harambe" caught on, being coined in a Vine which procured over 2.2 million loops, becoming a high-activity hashtag on Twitter, and inspiring the Reddit page, /r/d*cksoutforharambe.
Now, nearly three months later, Harambe is living on through funnier and more creative photo-shopped images being created and shared daily.
There have become petitions to avenge justice for Harambe, to make him a Pokemon, to rename the Cincinnati Bengals to the Cincinnati Harambes, and to make him the face of the $50 bill.
We may never know why popular culture and meme-makers latched themselves to Harambe. Maybe it's a sense of ironic sincerity or cynicism that keep people coming back But one thing is for sure; he has become more than a gorilla. He is America's gorilla.
