The origin
Harambe, a western lowland gorilla, was shot after a child entered his enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo.
How it spread
Sincere mourning turned into ironic mourning, then into a running joke deliberately kept alive past the point of taste.
What it means
A meme about memes: most people invoking it were performing grief rather than feeling it. Documented as history, including that discomfort.
Follow the source
Short editorial summary written by Random Access Memes from the sources above; the wording is ours, not theirs. Every link was checked for a live response on September 13, 2026.
