With online declarations such as “Harambe lives,” the Ohio zoo gorilla shot and killed after a three-year-old boy got into his enclosure has taken on life after death.
The late 17-year-old great ape has shown up in tongue-in-cheek petitions to rename the hometown Cincinnati Bengals, to add his face to Mount Rushmore or the Lincoln Memorial, and to put him on the US dollar bill. He has grown the angel wings and halo of a deity in social media memorials. He has even been mock-nominated for president.
The Harambe phenomenon is fed by genuine sadness over his death, continued controversy over the circumstances that led to it and the penchant of many social media users for satire — which sometimes turns offensive.
hoto: Reuters
“There is a word we like to use in our discipline, in pop culture studies, and that is ‘polysemic’: has many meanings,” said Jeremy Wallach, a professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “Harambe definitely is that, a sign that possesses many different interpretations.”
Harambe remembrances began soberly, with a legitimate “Justice for Harambe” petition seeking to hold the boy’s mother responsible in his May 28 death.
The Hamilton county prosecutor ruled there was no cause for charges. The zoo reopened its gorilla exhibit with a higher, reinforced barrier and urged support for gorilla conservation efforts.
However, the zoo’s hopes of moving on have been countered by all the continued reminders.
“We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe,” Cincinnati Zoo director Thane Maynard said by e-mail. “Our zoo family is still healing and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us. We are honoring Harambe by redoubling our gorilla conservation efforts and encouraging others to join us.”
Esther Clinton, who also specializes in popular culture at Bowling Green, said the Kong-like proportions of the craze reflect lingering questions.
“There are a lot of people who really do feel bad about what happened to him,” she said. “There’s a sense of here’s this poor guy, just in his cage imprisoned by humans, minding his own business; a kid climbs into his cage and he gets shot. It brings up all sorts of questions: about the zoo model, about the rights of non-human primates, about parenting.”
The Harambe phenomenon turned ugly in June, when images were posted on a Facebook page likening Adam Goodes, a retired Australian soccer player, to the ape. They were pulled down and the page apologized.
Twitter got caught in a similar controversy after racial posts about Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, who is black, included a Harambe comparison. The social media site recently announced two new settings aimed at curbing harassment.
Social media users like to satirize controversies. “Never Forget #Harambe,” read posts accompanying Harambe’s photo superimposed on sculptures, above cityscapes, among famous dead people such as Muhammad Ali or John F. Kennedy. Some Twitter users routinely add the hashtag #RIPHarambe even to posts that have nothing to do with him.
He has surfaced in rewritten song lyrics, comedians’ acts, at sports events and in rap songs.
On Change.org, a recent search turned up 253 references to Harambe. They include the early “Justice for Harambe” petition and the recent petition to rename the Cincinnati Bengals the Harambes, which has received more than 21,000 signatures. Other petitions want a Harambe emoji, a Harambe character in Pokemon Go, to clone Harambe, even to canonize him.
WCPO-TV Web editor James Leggate recently said that enough was enough by starting an online petition to end the Harambe online petitions.
“At first, the petitioners had good intentions,” he wrote. “But then the goofuses of the Internet hopped on the Harambe train for their jollies and it has gotten out of control.”
Animal rights activist Anthony Seta, who organized a Cincinnati vigil in tribute to Harambe soon after his death, thinks much of the attention in terms of memorials has been a positive.
“For the most part, I’m very happy with it. It shows people are remembering what a wonderful being he was,” he said. “The ones that are mocking and making light of the death of this being, I find incredibly offensive.”
Ashley Byrne, an associate director at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said trolls poking fun at animal-rights activists seem to be in a “distinct minority” when it comes to Harambe.
“This tragic incident really did start a new conversation,” she said. “Most people who saw the video came away with a great degree of empathy for animals forced to live in captivity.”
FLYBY: The object, appears to be traveling more than 60 kilometers per second, meaning it is not bound by the sun’s orbit, astronomers studying 3I/Atlas said Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through the solar system — only the third-ever spotted, although scientists suspect many more might slip past unnoticed. The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas, is likely the largest yet detected, and has been classified as a comet, or cosmic snowball. “It looks kind of fuzzy,” said Peter Veres, an astronomer with the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which was responsible for the official confirmation. “It seems that there is some gas around it, and I think one or two telescopes reported a very short tail.” Originally known as A11pl3Z before
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday accused Harvard University of violating the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students, and threatened to cut off all federal funding if the university does not take urgent action. Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump’s campaign against top US universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.” Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism. In a letter sent to the president of Harvard, a federal task
‘CONTINUE TO SERVE’: The 90-year-old Dalai Lama said he hoped to be able to continue serving ‘sentient beings and the Buddha Dharma’ for decades to come The Dalai Lama yesterday said he dreamed of living for decades more, as the Buddhist spiritual leader prayed with thousands of exiled Tibetans on the eve of his 90th birthday. Thumping drums and deep horns reverberated from the Indian hilltop temple, as a chanting chorus of red-robed monks and nuns offered long-life prayers for Tenzin Gyatso, who followers believe is the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Looking in good health, dressed in traditional maroon monk robes and a flowing yellow wrap, he led prayers — days after confirming that the 600-year-old Tibetan Buddhist institution would continue after his death. Many exiled Tibetans
BRICS leaders are to meet in Rio de Janeiro from today, with the bloc depleted by the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is skipping the annual summit of emerging economies for the first time in 12 years. The grouping meets as its members face imminent and costly tariff wars with the US. Conceived two decades ago as a forum for fast-growing economies, the BRICS have come to be dominated by Beijing, which grew much faster and larger than the rest. China has not said why Xi would miss the summit, a first since he became president in 2013. “I expect there
RSS