Harambe Statue Installed on Wall Street

Earlier this week, a bronze sculpture of Harambe the gorilla, who died in 2016, was installed directly across from the iconic Charging Bull in the middle of Wall Street. The statue was placed by the social networking platform, Sapien.Network, and along with the thousands of bananas strewn beneath the bull, is meant to signify the wealth disparity between Wall Street elites and the lower class.

You’d think people would’ve stopped joking about Harambe after he was a major write-in during the 2016 presidential election, but apparently not. Sapien.Network claims to be “putting the needs of human beings first,” but does this installation really line up with that philosophy? Wall Street may be going “bananas,” but my boy Harambe has been dragged through the mud enough. The gorilla, who was shot to death in the Cincinnati Zoo that he called his home has been the poster child for a gazillion memes and unrelated causes in the five years since his passing. I get how the peaceful-looking Harambe statue juxtaposes the aggressive energy of the Charging Bull, and how the two are meant to represent a critique of our capitalistic society. I just think that after all this time, we ought to let this magnificent great ape rest in peace – especially when it comes to causes that don’t relate to him whatsoever.