Rutgers for Harambe Protests the Political Status Quo
A poll conducted in Texas by Public Policy Polling found Green Party candidate Jill Stein effectively tied in the election for president of the United States with deceased gorilla and Internet meme Harambe.
At Rutgers University, the Rutgers for Harambe Facebook page was created just one week before that poll found a group of Americans who would rather vote for the gorilla that was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo after a 3-year-old fell into its enclosure instead of voting for either of the major political party’s presidential candidates.
The page’s founder is Myles Sepulveda, a 21-year-old Rutgers senior and accounting major from Butler, N.J. He created the page after he heard of another poll that found 5 percent of voters nationwide would vote for Harambe over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and after seeing the creation of the Rutgers for Trump Facebook page.
The poll that found Harambe tying with Jill Stein did not place the two head to head but both did receive two percent of the vote when placed in a hypothetical race against the Democratic and Republican candidates. Deez Nuts, a satirical presidential candidate, beat out Harambe by one percentage point in the same poll.
“I will say that it is pretty funny and awesome example of American’s voting their opinions in an abstract way. Rather than rioting and slinging mud over the media, they’re getting their point across simply by answering a poll,” Sepulveda said in an email.
“I’d be lying if I said the rise of the attention towards Harambe isn’t a little dark and sometimes inappropriate. But I think it’s rooted off the fact that the media actually spent a considerable amount of time debating the life of a gorilla over the safety of an innocent child. Combining that attention with the growth of all memes, the creativity of American millennials, and the amount of controversy surrounding this presidential election and you have one hell of a candidate for president.”
Rutgers for Harambe has 101 likes as of this publication. Most of Rutgers for Harambe’s followers are Sepulveda’s friends, according to him. “I guess the others are people who saw the satire behind it,” he said.
“I decided to put it together real quick and share around partially as a joke and partially because I am very disappointed with the candidates both parties have chosen to represent them.”
Harambe’s death and the ensuing conversation about its circumstances received extensive coverage by media organizations and eventually evolved into Harambe’s memeification.
“I really do believe that we are a group of 100 students who are so frustrated with the available options for president that we’d rather our pledge our allegiance to a dead gorilla (rest in peace) than one of the candidates,” Sepulveda said.
