Citing the fact that it doesn't look human and its lack of a funny name, many internet users are reportedly complaining that Great Barrier Reef memes are not as funny as Harambe memes.
"The Harambe memes were f***ing hilarious, like seriously" Alpha Kappa Bro fraternity member and frequent Reddit user, Hunter Greenwald told reporters Thursday, "but they're getting stale, and now all we have is this stupid f***ing reef thing."
Greenwald, who has liked and followed over five Harambe meme dedicated pages on Facebook, noted that his Great Barrier Reef memes have been getting significantly fewer likes, comments and shares on social media than their Harambe counterparts.
"Two weeks ago I made this Harambe Meme and it got retweeted by a really big Harambe twitter," Greenwall said. "It has like 5K likes right now. Hold on; let me show you."
Greenwall went on to share that his best Great Barrier Reef meme had only gotten seven likes.
"And one of them was from my f***ing grandma," he added.
Meme provided by Hunter Greenwald
Greenwall is not alone in his disappointment with the current state of internet meme fodder. Other internet users like Shanna Piland, an admin on the Twitter @2016DankestMemesHarambeEdition is also frustrated.
"We tried to switch over to the Reef memes a couple of days ago," said Piland, who also runs four Facebook pages dedicated to uploading screenshots of Tumblr posts and video screen capture of GIF content. "We lost more followers in the past four days than that one week we dedicated to 'Bush Did 9/11' memes."
While many internet users are currently scrambling to find newer and danker memes, others are searching to discover why the Great Barrier Reef memes aren't.
"One of the key factors here is visual presentation," said Lewis Madson who, according to his twitter bio, is a Meme Studies major at Dank University. "People could easily relate to Harambe because of his human-like appearance, while simultaneously distancing themselves due to his angry face, dark appearance and the fact that he was a gorilla."
The Great Barrier Reef provides none of these factors.
"The reef is a giant f***ing underwater plant or something," Madson said. "You can't turn that into a martyr."
He went on to add that, "half the internet traffic just stoners who click on anything with the word 'reef' in it."
While the internet reaction to the Great Barrier Reef memes remains largely negative, all interviewees agreed that since the memes are so young, the internet might eventually grow to enjoy them with time.
