A few months ago, the death of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo was seen as a tragedy, and many people were outraged by the even. Lately, however, nearly everybody is making Harambe jokes, myself included. So how has an event that caused so much outrage have such hilarious results?
First off, we’ve been desensitized to the story. The death of Harambe, for a time, was an enormous news story covered by every network, newspaper, and current-events blog imaginable. Harambe was just absolutely run into the ground fairly early on.
This created a small number of people who were tired of hearing about Harambe, leading to the creation of ironic Harambe memes. Because the images were humorous, topical, and edgy, they spread like wildfire. A Harambe meme at this point was like saying, “we get it; a gorilla got shot. It’s terrible, but it’s over.”
It’s gotten to the point that Harambe memes don’t really shock or offend anybody anymore, and even those most outraged by the event early on enjoy Harambe memes. This is largely because Harambe memes have become so absurd, that we can’t help but laugh.
Laughing at Harambe jokes doesn’t mean we don’t miss that beautiful, silverback angel. This is just a case of something negative being turned into something positive; and what could be wrong with that? Why should we spend the rest of the year crying over something that, in the long run, doesn’t really matter? Sure, some may feel that zoos should not exist and that Harambe should be used as a martyr; but that’s not going to happen. One freak incident with a kid purposely jumping into a gorilla pit isn’t going to change the way people view animal rights forever.
Harambe memes are probably going to die soon. Like any trend, it will pass. This, however, has to be one of the stranger trends in quite some time; and the way outrage slowly transformed into humor is truly intriguing.
