This past weekend, the Internet marked Harambe the gorilla’s three-month “deathiversary.” This month, though, even a Presidential contender, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, got in on the action—probably to woo some of the voters in Texas who selected the dead gorilla over her in a primary poll.
Initially, people assumed Stein’s tweet was the result of a hack—after all, it’s not unusual for celebrity and high-profile accounts to suddenly start tweeting about the Cincinnati Zoo’s erstwhile star primate when taken over by nefarious forces.
But Stein’s tweet was legitimate. She even went on a “tweet-storm” trying to take the media to task for focusing on her Harambe tribute rather than her plan for inner city schoolchildren.
The answer is, likely, that the media doesn’t take Stein’s plans to end poverty in places like Baltimore seriously, but it does want to know how she feels about the campaign’s more ancillary issues, like vaccines, radio waves from cell phones, and her running mate’s unique foreign policy positions.
It’s also possible that Stein is serious about her opposition to killing Harambe, who was shot when a child fell into his Cincinnati Zoo enclosure. In a follow up to her social media statements, Stein noted that Harambe’s death should remind Americans that animals need greater rights and protections.
“Other countries, especially in Europe, have begun to provide legal rights and protected status to primates as living beings,” a statement on her website read. “Non-human primates should have the legal right to live freely or, when necessary, in sanctuaries only for medical rehabilitation or ecological assistance for endangered species.”
It helps that the Internet still, three months later, loves Harambe. Stein was far from alone in her tribute. A Cincinnati school has adopted a gorilla mascot in tribute to the fallen primate, and this weekend, he debuted his act at the school year’s first football game, dragging around a small child and dancing for the crowd.
A fan of the Boston Red Sox also showed his enduring love for Harambe, dashing onto the field during Sunday night’s game against the Kansas City Royals, wearing a New England Patriots jersey with the number 69 and “Harambe” printed on the back.
He was quickly captured and neutralized. Unlike his gorilla namesake, he was allowed to leave the park.
The band CHVRCHES dedicated a song to Harambe during their weekend performance at the UK’s Reading Festival.