In the age of information where the majority of the world is connected to the internet, the spread of misinformation is rampant, hitting the naive with fake facts and false reports.
But let’s be honest — we all wanted to believe in the story of Harambe McHarambeFace.
We could write a whole feature about the year’s biggest meme (oh wait never mind, Vox already did), but we’ll just explain briefly why everyone’s dicks are out for Harambe. Officials at the Cincinnati Zoo were forced to kill Harambe the gorilla after a four-year-old child climbed into his enclosure and fell into the moat. While Harambe dragged the boy out of the moat, zoo officials believed that the child was in danger, opting for an instant kill in case the gorilla reacted badly to tranquilizers and hurt the child.
It was after his death that Harambe transcended to a literal internet legend. In the wake of his death, the internet went ballistic on Cincinnati Zoo and the child’s mother for her alleged negligence. Netizens took Harambe and ran so, so very hard with it in a simultaneous showing of irreverence and sincerity. The war cry ‘dicks out for Harambe’ was crafted, with dozens of images and memes spreading online. The Cincinnati Zoo was absolutely unamused by the meme, and had to delete its social media accounts over the undying harassment.
Earlier this month, some news site called Boston Leader published an article claiming that a zoo in China held a naming contest for a baby gorilla — and that “Harambe McHarambeFace” captured over 93 percent of the votes cast online. A combination of two memes — Harambe + Boaty McBoatface — sounds too good to be true, and it is. Though many legit news outlets picked up the story (citing Boston Leader as the source), the site was outed as fake. It was created on Sept 9, 2016 despite the claim of “Bringing you Boston’s best news since 1932”, and Jinhua Zoo itself doesn’t seem to have any gorillas in its possession.
Despite being outed as a fake news site (lacking the biting satire or humor like Clickhole or The Onion), Boston Leader tried concocting a viral news story again — this time involving the Singaporean craze over Pokémon Go. The rather lacklustre piece talks about how a 28-year-old Singaporean man filed for divorce from his wife after she became obsessed with the game.
“I constantly asked her to put her phone away when were were together,” said the fictional ‘Mr Lim’. “But despite my pleas she would continue to play Pokemon while we were having dinner, while she was brushing her teeth, and even on one occasion as we made love”.
You can read the full unfunny story here. And as always, #dicksoutforHarambe.
