Admit it, the Harambe memes need to die

All good memes must come to an end

On May 28th, 2016 a young boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. Shortly after falling into the enclosure, the young boy was dragged by a 17-year-old Western lowland gorilla named Harambe.  After the situation escalated a zoo worker assessed the danger of the situation and decided to shoot Harambe in order to save the child.

After the death of Harambe, the internet hit the meme gold mine, immortalizing the gorilla with parody accounts, merch, and of course memes. Harambe put Ohio on the map, but it’s time to put the Harambe memes out to pasture.

Though it’s been nearly 9 months since the incident at the Cincinnati Zoo there are still plenty of devoted Harambe fans out there willing to incite a bidding war for a hot Cheeto resembling the late gorilla. Some poor sucker out there had a spare $100,000 to snag what I’m sure they’ll treasure for all of a few days before the regret sinks in. We have hit a new low when it comes to what is and isn’t funny.

The death of Harambe was shocking, and of course everyone had an opinion about the situation. The story was a hot topic for months and I admit that the memes which followed provided prime entertainment. People sported Harambe shirts walking around college campuses, bought Harambe posters, and for a while it was impossible to go out in public without hearing someone say “dicks out for Harambe” completely unprovoked. It became the new Carpe Diem.

Before someone decided it was a good idea to buy a hot Cheeto that their mind has been tricked into thinking looks like Harambe, things were good. New memes were coming out and we were all laughing at those for a month or two until something better came along. Even the best memes run their course eventually, and it’s time for the Harambe memes to join all the other memes that have died out like Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer and Dat Boi.

Years from now when our kids dig up all of the memes we used to love, we’ll have to explain to them that America—and possibly the rest of the world—was so obsessed with a dead gorilla that someone bought a hot Cheeto supposedly resembling him for $100,000. All you have to do is a quick internet search of “Harambe memes” to see that there’s no need for more of them.

We should have drawn the line when people thought it was funny to write-in Harambe during the most recent election while the rest of the world shook their heads at us in shock and disgust. I can’t even hear the name Harambe without feeling the urge to punch something.

Just when you were starting to think the madness was over someone listed a Harambe Cheeto look-a-like for sale on eBay. Here’s to hoping that we can all forget about this in a few days and that Harambe can finally rest in peace.

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