Harambe

Harambe (/həˈrɑːmbeɪ/ hə-RAHM-bay; May 27, 1999 – May 28, 2016) was a western lowland gorilla who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo. On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was grabbed and violently dragged and thrown by Harambe.[3] Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe. The incident was recorded on video and received broad international coverage and commentary, including controversy over the choice to use lethal force. Several primatologists and conservationists wrote later that the zoo had no other choice under the circumstances, and that it highlighted the danger of zoo animals near humans and the need for better standards of care. Harambe became the subject of Internet memes, a statue, songs, and other tributes and recognitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambe#Memes

summer of Harambe

Venkatesh Rao: How Harambe Became the Perfect Meme

• 2020: Lenin once noted [1] that “there are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.” For many, the four-year period between 2016 and 2020 has seemed like a relentless parade of decade-sized weeks. I call this period The Great Weirding, a phrase I first used in a 2016 essay reflecting on the significance of the Harambe meme, which emerged in the wake of the unsettling killing of Harambe, the gorilla, at the Cincinnati Zoo in May, 2016. It was an event which, for many of us, turned into the symbolic marker of the advent of the Great Weirding.