Harambe may have died last May after Ohio zookeepers shot him to protect a toddler who fell into the gorilla’s enclosure, but the ape has lived on in the hearts and memes of people around the world.
Unfortunately, the staffers at the Cincinnati Zoo are less that enthusiastic about the recent outpouring of love and dick pic tributes to the fallen animal.
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“We are not amused by the memes, petitions, and signs about Harambe,” Cincinnati Zoo director Thane Maynard told the Associated Press on Monday. “Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us.”
But the zoo is having to deal with more than just lame-ass trolly car problem memes. Last weekend, Maynard’s personal Twitter account was hacked, spawning a series of Harambe hashtag tweets, and the Cincinnati Zoo’s own social media is a nightmare of Harambe spam popping up faster than the zoo can delete it.
As earnest and heartfelt as Maynard’s plea for the end of Harambe image macros is, his best course of action is probably just to wait a few more weeks until the joke has dried up. Harambe may have a better shelf life than Damn Daniel or whatever, but there’s no way its got the legs of “Smooth.”
Read: A Co-Creator of Know Your Meme Explains What the Hell a Meme Actually Is
