“Hear me out,” my daughter wrote in a family group text. “Since it was our first day of school, we should go out to dinner.” My wife responded with, “Hear me out: where are you?” To which my other daughter replied, “Hear me out: RIP Harambe.”
If that seems inappropriate, that’s kind of the point. Harambe, the gorilla shot and killed by the Cincinnati Zoo when a young child fell into his enclosure, is still being referenced all over the internet, almost always at inappropriate times.
Consider this tweet from the Cincinnati Zoo official Twitter account: “As distinctive as a fingerprint, every zebra has a unique pattern of stripes.” That innocuous statement sparked a barrage of Harambe-themed responses, according to a BuzzFeed article. “Harambe loved fingerprints,” replied one user, while another tweeted “u had a unique way of killing harambe.” It got so bad that the zoo ended up deleting its Twitter account altogether, complaining that they were “not amused” by all the Harambe mentions, according to Time.
They seem to be the only ones, however, as Harambe meme fever refuses to die (“Why are we still talking about Harambe?” asked the Deseret News in a recent article). Just this week, an internet hoax reported that a zoo in China opened an online survey to pick a name for its new baby gorilla. USA Today reports that the hoax was posted by the Boston Leader, a fake news website. According to the fake article, the winner, which they reported as capturing 93 percent of all votes cast, was Harambe McHarambeface.
It's a reference to a recent, real-life incident where the British government refused to christen its new research vessel “Boaty McBoatface,” the name that won its online contest fair and square, according to USA Today. When the government arbitrarily decided to ignore the will of the internet and name the boat after famed naturalist David Attenborough, a petition was drafted to persuade Attenborough to change his name to Boaty McBoatface. According to change.org, the petition has garnered more than 3,500 signatures.
Some see this kind of silliness as evidence of the decline and fall of Western civilization. “Our zoo family is still healing,” said Thayne Maynard, the director of the Cincinnati Zoo, “and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us.” That’s understandable, although it’s worth noting that the Harambe phenomenon has moved far beyond the actual incident itself and no longer seems rooted in reality. Prior to their NFL season-opener, the Minnesota Vikings gathered in a circle and began chanting “Spoons out for Harambe” whilst simulating spoon-fed eating, according to Fox Sports. They seem to be having a good time while doing it, despite the fact that it doesn’t really have anything to do with the historical Harambe, and that it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Although, again, that seems to be the point.
Perhaps there’s something wrong with me, as I think a spontaneous outpouring of goofiness on a global scale is, on the whole, a good thing. I can remember organizing book drops in the middle of Mrs. Garcia’s high school Spanish class, but the reach of my stupidity was confined to a single classroom. Had the internet been a thing back then, perhaps I could have persuaded students on every continent to drop their books at the bottom of the hour to shake things up a bit. Or maybe we could have all pulled out spoons for Harambe instead.
The fact is that we live on a planet that is deeply divided, and I welcome anything that can bring us together, even if it’s for a moment of sheer nonsense. That’s why, if I were David Attenborough, my driver’s license would now read “Boaty McBoatface.”
Jim Bennett is a recovering actor, theater producer and politico, and he writes about pop culture and politics at his blog, stallioncornell.com.