Talk:Harambe/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Requested move 24 October 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to Move - !Votes were balanced in favour of moving. The arguments of the move !voters were based mostly on conciseness and recognisability, whilst the main arguments of the oppose !voters were centred around consistency with other similar killings and WP:1E. The weight of opinion in favour of "Harambe" being more recognisable a term, and the article not only being about the killing per se (and so WP:1E did not apply so much), shows a narrow but clear consensus in favour of moving in this discussion. (non-admin closure) FOARP (talk) 15:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

---

Killing of Harambe → Harambe – More concise title. The original 2016 move was requested for "disambiguation", but Harambe still redirects here, so I'm not sure what purpose the longer title serves. We have a number of other articles named for animals that were notable mainly for one incident: Balto, Belka and Strelka, Binti Jua, Chance the Snapper, Cher Ami, Dolly (sheep), Emperor of Exmoor, Jambo, Joe the Pigeon, Laika, Pickles (dog), and Sam (koala). Those are just the ones I found after a quick search; there may be others under Category:Individual animals by taxon. The § Incident, i.e. the killing itself, takes up only a small part of the article. The § Internet meme and pop culture references, which take up a much larger part, are often shorthanded with just "Harambe". --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:27, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support, Harambe himself is now famous as a meme and not just his killing.--Ortizesp (talk) 06:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Harambe is actually the fictional animal or city that can be found at Disney's Animal Kingdom and not just its killing. 180.254.162.137 (talk) 08:26, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment, "What purpose does the title serve"? It was discussed during the AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Harambe many editors supported naming after the incident. Harambe was not notable prior to the killing, it's a single event. The death event and legacy are notable; Harambe's life not so much. -- GreenC 15:10, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Killing of X" is standard form for someone only known for being killed. That should extend to gorillas as well. In addition, it's unclear whether the gorilla is the long-term primary topic for Harambe. O.N.R. ^(talk) 15:19, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Marius (giraffe) and Muckle Hart of Benmore were also notable primarily following their deaths. Should this title format be extended to all animals, not just apes? It doesn't seem to be a consistent standard for people; see Category:Murder victims for many counter-examples (Catherine Eddowes and Nicole Brown Simpson spring to mind). There's nothing at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) suggesting this as a standard format either. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nomination, Ortizesp, 180.254.162.137 and per reply by Sangdeboeuf. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 16:44, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Weak oppose: The only thing that seems notable about the gorilla is the incident in which he was killed, so I don't see a problem with this title. Some other articles may be candidates for renaming, but I see no problem here. Ortizesp makes a good point about the meme, but as an encyclopedia I think Wikipedia should try to be a bit formal in its register. (BTW, Joe the Pigeon was acquitted and is still alive as far as I know.) —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Weak support When Harambe was first killed, the current title made sense because he was not well known and a 1E, to avoid a deletion at AfD. Over time, Harambe has proven to be an enduring and broad topic about the killing, animal rights, zoos, memes and pop culture. All those things happened after and because of the death which remains the paramount reason for becoming notable. Now that notability is achieved, enduring coverage as a symbol and meme makes it a standalone topic. Without enduring coverage it would remain as about the killing. -- GreenC 18:10, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Just a note that WP:1E is specifically about people, not non-human primates. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

    Not people?! Well, I guess choose one of the other arguments made during the AfD. -- GreenC 21:08, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Support, because if Harambe hadn't been shot down like a dog he likely would have kept protecting the child and earned a page on Wikipedia for himself (see Binti Jua and Jambo, two distinguished and applauded primates). Plus per the ongoing notable memes and such things as the songs, Harambe starring in a video game, and the recent newsworthy statue. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:59, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Obvs. I have not been canvassed in any way to add my !vote here. Dogs are people too, you know. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:39, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support per GreenC. SnowFire (talk) 23:16, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This is about an incident. Agree with ONR that "Killing of .... " is standard format for people known only for being killed. Don't see reason for special treatment for apes or other animals. There's practically nothing about the ape himself here - there are two sentences in this article that are not about the killing. Rest is about the killing, reactions to the killing or internet memes about the killing. Walrasiad (talk) 22:22, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Again I point to Binti Jua and Jambo, who Harambe would surely have joined with a stand-alone article if he had lived and raised the child as his own, at least for a few minutes. So by precedent he would have had a page named Harambe. His bad fortune to have the set of circumstances take the story another way shouldn't stand against him, which is what the creators of those memes, songs, statue and other tributes seem to be telling us. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:31, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

    Disagree. This is not about hypotheticals. Hypothetically, he could have been Queen of England if he lived. There is no reason to suppose there would have been anything notable about this gorilla, that would deserve an article, if not for its killing, and the meme-fication of that killing. Plenty of people could have had amazing careers if they were not killed, and may have had biographical articles here under their names rather than, alas, "Killing of.." articles. Unfortunately, Gabby Petito, JonBenét Ramsey, etc. end up redirected to articles entitled Killing of Gabby Petito, Killing of JonBenét Ramsey, etc. This gorilla doesn't deserve special treatment that we don't grant to people with more expansive biographies. Walrasiad (talk) 06:44, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

    Missed the point. The two gorillas above with stand-alone pages did nothing more than not-kill the children, and have their own pages. That precedent would have made Harambe page-worthy either way, and his being killed is only part of the story and came after the ten-minutes of, and shouldn't overshadow, his notable caring for the child. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:58, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

    And you missed my point. The noteworthiness of this gorilla (and this article) is the killing, not that a child fell into its enclosure. Similarly JonBenet Ramsey's notability is not for being a child beauty queen, but for her killing. And yes, that overshadows. Walrasiad (talk) 18:03, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

    But...if there were only two previous child beauty queens in existence, and both had personally named Wikipedia pages because of their uniqueness, then JonBenet Ramsey, being only the third known child beauty queen, would have deserved a named page even without her murder due to the precedent set with the other two. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Gorillas are not unique. There are many gorillas, not only across many zoos, but also in the wild. The only notability of this gorilla is that he was killed by zoo authorities, and that killing apparently energized some internet memes. That is all. Walrasiad (talk) 00:28, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support. All niceties about whether he would have been famous under other outcomes aside, the proposed title is more concise and remains easily recognizable. BD2412 T 05:13, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose because the big ape was non-notable before he was killed, is only individually famous because of his killing (WP:1E), and the meme is not about Harambe, it's about his killing. Those hilarious and sarcastic meme images may show Harambe alone, or refer to his name (without the word "killing"), but that's because of the difficulty of showing the killing, and the easy meme shorthand of just using his name or picture. In fact, the memes are about and because of his killing, not the gorilla himself. The presumed precedents of Binti Jua and Jambo mentioned by Randy are interesting, but I wonder what the names of those articles would otherwise be. The non-killing of Binti Jua or non-killing of Jambo? And should we really have Joe the Pigeon hoax? But those are all side-arguments. I feel the OP's primary move rationale of WP:CONCISE is overridden by WP:PRECISION, as the article's topical scope is the killing and the reactions and memes that came out of it. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 14:42, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Binti Jua and Jambo still reign as precedents of gorillas not killing human children getting Wikipedia pages, so Harambe likely would have his article regardless. He non-killed the child for at least 10 minutes (the Binti Jua and Jambo pages don't provide times). To elevate his killing to primary descriptor doesn't fit those precedents. Seems a good name change to fit the related Wikipedia collection, plus it has the memes and other cultural recognitions to give the ape further and ongoing notability. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

    Not finding your arguments persuasive, Randy. His not-pedocide lasting "at least" 10 minutes only points to the absurdity of his being killed. It underscores the importance of "Killing" in the title, IMO. The Binti Jua and Jambo pages aren't good precedents 'cuz they weren't snuffed (although I do see what you mean). And BTW, that Jambo article sorely needs its sources worked over! — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 16:59, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Simply on the basis that the article describes the killing and its aftermath, offering very little about Harambe himself. The background section is the only one that doesn't somehow reference the killing, and it barely has a full paragraph. For the article to be labelled anything other than "Killing of Harambe", it should have more non-killing-related coverage. Even the coverage of the meme and cultural impact discusses the killing to an extent. ASUKITE 16:38, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• The RfM is now closed, but to add: the reason the article is mostly about the killing, we have been restricted from writing in more depth about Harambe by the topic of the article, narrowly focused on the killing, with only minor weight given to his pre-killing life. Now the restriction has been lifted, the article can be expanded with more in-depth on his earlier life and whatever else there is sourced to about Harambe, including the lead section can now be changed to be more like a regular bio. -- GreenC 16:02, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• I doubt we will find a lot of aspects of his life prior to the incident in which he was killed that are sufficiently notable for discussion (without including WP:UNDUE non-noteworthy material). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:20, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I recall some conversations around 2016 that reduced/removed some content because it was not central to the killing. Probably worth revisiting old talk pages and diff edit summaries. The article is now about Harambe's entire life, what is undue if reported in reliable sources, hard to say. Obviously the idea isn't to stuff the article with trivia like his feeding schedule. -- GreenC 17:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 28 December 2021

In the section "media" there is currently the following text

On October 18, 2021, a 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) bronze statue of Harambe was illegally placed in Bowling Green Park, facing the Charging Bull statue, which itself had originally been illegally placed. The act was carried out by organizers promoting Sapien.Network, an in-development social media network who are dedicated to putting the needs of humans first. The statue of Harambe facing the bull whose feet were surrounded by 10,000 bananas was a statement about wealth disparity.

I would like to request three changes to this.

• Please add a wikilink to Harambe (statue), perhaps the text "bronze statue of Harambe"?
• Please remove "who are dedicated to putting the needs of humans first" as it has completely the wrong tone for an encyclopaedia and reads like promotional material/a press release for the social network.
• Please replace the final sentence with something like "The statue of the Charging Bull's feet were surrounded by 10,000 bananas in a statement about wealth disparity.", which I think is more readable.

Thank you, 86.23.109.101 (talk) 21:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll add the link, but I wrote this and have nothing to do with the organization, it is not promotional. It is an explanation of why they put the statue and who the org is, typical reporting information. If you just say there was a statue with bananas and nothing else it's like huh? Who put it there? Why? Why the bananas? It makes no sense. Harambe (statue) should have that info in the lead section also, it goes too far to exclude who/what/where/why information on grounds of promotion. -- GreenC 21:31, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Done with a few copyedits. -- GreenC 21:36, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Dicks out for harambe is not a reference to guns

.. dicks out for harambe is not a reference to armed retribution, its literally about pulling your dick out in solidarity.. whoever wrote that is embarrassingly out of touch and is not qualified to write about internet culture.. 179.49.61.66 (talk) 18:13, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Please read the sources: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a8354653/dicks-out-for-harambe-internets-most-fascinating/ EvergreenFir (talk) 18:39, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Guns is definitely how it originated, but after the meme became super popular as a sort of frat-boy in-joke expressing solidarity as much to Haramabe as among bro friends who used it, that the IP posters is expressing, by that point it had jumped the shark and the originator of the meme was already stepping away from it all. -- GreenC 18:55, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

First off, the source quoted mentions explicitly that the creator thinks it turned into a frat guy thing (which, incidentally, I don't think is particularly accurate in my, entirely anecdotal, experience, but regardless), the sort of thing people chant and yell because it's stupid and funny. It's difficult to prove a negative here, and it's also difficult to find sources, because there's very little overlap between the sorts of people who thought "dicks out for Harambe" is funny and understand its cultural context, and the sorts of people who write culture articles on the Internet. But just because it started with a particular meaning, absolutely doesn't mean that it still carries that meaning.

Anecdotally, as someone who is actually part of the generation this meme was popularized in, I had never heard anyone say "dicks out for Harambe" in reference to guns. It's about penises, guys. The "joke" is the incongruity of suggesting exposing yourself as a method of public mourning.

I'm going to edit to indicate that guns was what it *initially* signified, since that's all the cited source can confirm. Later, someone else can, if they choose, try to find a good source (preferably written by someone under 30) on the later meaning and usage (I'm skeptical such an article exists, to be honest). Anadev1612 (talk) 17:14, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

analogous statement became puerile irreverence. -- GreenC 19:15, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Age and time of captivity of Harambe

If Harambe was born on May 27, 1999 and was shot on May 28, 2016, he was 17 years old when he was killed. However, the article states that he lived at the Cincinnati Zoo for 3 years and the Gladys Porter Zoo for 15 years, which adds up to 18 years. This should be checked, it probably just adds up to living at Gladys Porter for 14 instead of 15 years. TheRuinsOfAlpha (talk) 22:04, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

On second glance, this only seems to be on the Google page that links to Wikipedia about "Harambe's killing" so I am unaware if Wikipedia can change that. The page is correct, stating he lived in Cinci from 2014-2016 TheRuinsOfAlpha (talk) 22:12, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2023

Add Category:Internet memes, Category:Internet memes introduced in 2016, and Category:Internet memes introduced in the 2010s. 162.83.141.156 (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Added 2016, the others are WP:PARENTCAT Hyphenation Expert (talk) 21:12, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 October 2023

Hello - I'm requesting an edit be made the following sentence as it contains editorial opinion with the word 'violently'. Also, the full video is available for review and the description of violently does not accurately describe the event. IF there was consideration for using this word, it should be referenced to respect to what violently would be with respect to a lowland gorilla and by no means is the encounter anywhere close to what a violent action by a lowland gorilla would be.

On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was grabbed and dragged violently by Harambe.

To On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was grabbed and dragged by Harambe. Methods21 (talk) 13:33, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Good catch,  Done. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:08, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

The problem is, the boy is not a lowland gorilla, it was a violent "grab and drag" (note the qualifier) for a human, child or otherwise. The sentence says "he was", the entire sentence refers to the perspective of the boy, not Harambe. The edit request is based on a flawed reading, picking words out of context. If you need sources that confirm that boy was violently handled by Harambe, that is no problem: "According to the incident report cited by the New York Times, Harambe was described as "violently dragging and throwing the child." [1]. "The 450-pound Harambe violently pulled the boy" (CNN). "He is violently dragging the boy" (NYT). "the gorilla can be seen dragging the boy violently through the water" (Slate). It goes on and on.. the majority of sources say, obviously, Harambe was violently dragging and throwing the child from the perspective of the child and other human onlookers, which is why he got shot, which is the core reason this article is notable and why it's in the lead section. -- GreenC 14:59, 13 October 2023 (UTC)