Harambe-like Emoji Coming to Your Phone This Fall

The tragedy of Harambe has captured the imagination of internet culture so much that memes have been off the hook and have branched into subcultures. The zoo had to submit an official statement asking people to stop.

"On May 28th, 2016, a 4-year-old boy crawled into the enclosure of the Western lowland gorilla Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo. The gorilla then grasped the child and began dragging him about the enclosure before a Cincinnati Zoo employee fatally shot Harambe with a rifle.That day, YouTuber maxi uploaded footage of the incident to YouTube, where it gathered upwards of 12.6 million views and 41,000 comments in the next 48 hours. The video was subsequently removed, but several mirrored versions quickly resurfaced." - KnowYourMeme.com

The origins of the memes started innocently enough on Reddit. It was adopted by animal rights activists, and soon started to branch out and be embraced by those less sensitive. The argument that Harambe has had an impact on internet culture is easily made, which is why it seems a gorilla is going to be added as one of the few new animals on Apple's emojis.

Check out the Gorilla Emoji Here.