harambe toronto

There's a Harambe vigil in Toronto this week

Harambe, the gorilla who was tragically killed at the Cincinnati Zoo earlier this year, lives on thanks to the cruel power of the internet.

And now the 17-year-old Western lowland gorilla looks like he's going to commemorated in real life at Toronto's Ryerson University - if you believe Facebook, that is. According to the event, around 1,200 people say they plan to attend the candlelight vigil by Lake Devo (which is located by Gould and Victoria Streets) on Thursday, September 22.

There are similar events planned for school across the country, including at Wilfrid Laurier University, McGill and McMaster. But as Metro News points out, none of these memorial services may actually pan out.

For the uninitiated, Harambe became a massively shared meme this summer - the podcast Reply All does a great job of explaining how the gorilla's death (and the public's subsequent reaction) fuelled a maelstrom of social media activity. It got so bad, the Cincinnati Zoo had to shut down its Twitter.

Here's why (and no, the Jinhua Zoo in China didn't actually name its baby gorilla Harambe McHarambeface):

Photo via the @cincinnatizoo.


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