“Our zoo family is still healing and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more hard for us”. In order to save the 3-year-old boy, staff had to fatally shoot Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla.
Advertisement
On Monday, Maynard called for an end to the monkeying around, saying that that the zoo was “not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe”. The 450-pound gorilla dragged the boy around the enclosure before a zoo worker shot the animal.
A variety of Harambe jokes were posted from Maynard’s account, most of which included hashtags such as #AnimalRights #JusticeForHarambe and the infamous #*****OutForHarambe.
As a result Cincinnati Zoo have now deleted both their Facebook and Twitter accounts, removing their online presence as they look to move beyond the tragic incident.
In the wake of the zoo’s social media shutdown, many people have continued to joke about the gorilla’s death.
The zoo hasn’t said exactly why they took down their Twitter page or if it had anything to do with the ongoing mentions of Harambe by their Twitter followers.
Harambe jeers will never be “co-opted by internet-literate corporate Twitter accounts or deployed by some hapless news anchor”, said Mr Feldman, who commonly writes about the internet’s favourite memes.
Advertisement
In the three months since Harambe’s death, The Cincinnati Zoo has been the target of countless memes and blunt, hurtful comments related to the shooting.
