For 17 years, Harambe the western lowland gorilla lived his life. He lived in captivity, bringing joy to children and adults alike. Two years ago, he was moved to the Cincinnati Zoo. And this year on May 28th, we all know what happened. A child ended up in the gorilla enclosure and Harambe was shot because the zoo had to protect the kid. At first, I saw many opinionated people occupy Facebook with Harambe posts. The mother of the child was condemned and then defended; the zoo was condemned and then defended.

It's now August and people still care about Harambe. If the Harambe story had ended with Facebook debates... it would have ended months ago. However, Harambe became a meme. Although the gorilla is dead, he also transcended his finite lifetime to become an immortal idea.

The most remarkable thing about Harambe's fate isn't the wild chain of events that led to his death. It's his legacy. Although it isn't true, Internet users have been circulating this headline:

Usually, a rock music performance gets dedicated to something anti-establishment, something rebellious. Something along the lines of, "If you like to have a good time and don't wanna be thrown in jail for smoking some weed, this one's for you!" As "School of Rock" taught us, it is a rock musician's duty to "stick it to the man." The Mick Jagger meme, although simply created as a support around the wordplay "Micks out," shows us a key component of Harambe's eternal flame: rebellion.

The memes don't cover themes like parenting, zookeeping, or protecting wildlife in general. These memes don't support anything in particular, nor do they seek any positive type of change. And yet people have actually written in votes for Harambe. They didn't simply forget to vote, like many lazy Americans do. They went to vote... and they wrote in Harambe.

These people don't know what they want. They don't intend to do anything, because they're stuck. That's the situation of the average American citizen in 2016. Often, we just know that we are angry. We are angry about a lot of things. But with these memes, we get to show a finite amount of anger without actually seeming like we care about the news from May 28th onward. We long for a purer time... an Age of Harambe.

But beware! If we cling to the past, we will be embracing reactionary rhetoric, and that's the opposite of being progressive. Harambe works great as a rock 'n' roll icon! But don't use Harambe's name in vain and don't write him in for President of the United States.