Harambe, a 17-year-old lowland gorilla who was shot and killed by a Cincinnati Zoo worker to save a small child who had wandered into its enclosure, is long dead, unlike his memes.
Over the months, the gorilla's death has evolved from a tragedy to a perfect meme. Harambe memes have flooded the Internet, even prompting the Cincinnati Zoo, a prime target, to delete their social media accounts due to the unending barrage of jokes around the gorilla.
I started replacing some family photos at my parents' house with photos of Harambe but my mom caught me. pic.twitter.com/JIGmKSateq
— pat tobin (@tastefactory) August 20, 2016
Texts that piss me off:
1. Yeah
2. Oh
3. Yup
4. Lol
5. Haha
6. K
7. Nope
8. harambe was just a gorilla
9. Naw
— sp00kique w/ an e🎃 (@enriqaye) August 21, 2016
It was only a matter of time before the global trend would wash up on Indian shores. Swrang Varma, 19, a student at University School of Law and Legal Studies (USLLS) is hosting an Intra-Campus Parliamentary Debate competition and he has a surprise event in it -- a candlelight vigil for Harambe -- organized by the Indraprastha Debating Union.
Varma and his friends have set up an event page on Facebook -- Candlelight Vigil For Harambe- Delhi.
Description of the event explains the reason behind the event.
"There's a Harambe in all of us."
The vigil is set to take place at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University's (GGSIPU) main campus, Dwarka on October 15 between 7-9pm.
Speaking to HuffPost India Varma said, "There's not much that we've planned. Beforehand, that is. We were going to do his soul complete justice and get our d**ks out, but that's not really covered in our police permissions. So we'll make do with holding candles (because what else comes closer) from the basketball ground in our campus to the main gate."
The event on FB has already engaged people in sharing their favourite Harambe jokes and memes.
When asked about his inspiration for such an event, he said, "We were quite sick of everyone looking at our college as a cultural non-event. This singularly gives our college its 15 seconds of fame as well as giving the meme culture a significant boost in the collective consciousness, however, mainstream Harambe might be."
"This planet does not deserve Harambe. But at least he didn't have to live through the US election," Varma concludes.
RIP, legend.
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