13,000 people want Harambe the dead gorilla to be a Pokemon
With some luck and Niantic's help, Harambe, the gorilla killed by the Cincinnati Zoo on May 28, could become a Pokémon.
There's a Change.org petition asking for Harambe's canonization into the Pokémon universe. It's just a day old as of this posting, and already has more than 13,000 supporters.
The petition's creator, who goes by the name Eric CreamyMemes and runs the popular meme Facebook page Eric's Creamy Memes, cited the spot-on Pokémon artwork first posted by a Twitter account that parodies Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
His vision has a Pokémon called "Hambo," which can then evolve into Harambe:
They're appropriately Ghost- and Fighting-type Pokémon, which would be great because there currently aren't any Pokémon with that dual-type combination in the game. (The "meat shield" ability, though, is maybe a bit tasteless.)
The Miyamoto parody account also made "Himham," another evolutionary form, with a different special ability.
"I'm just trying to keep Harambe's legacy alive," Eric, the creator of the petition, told INSIDER. "All of these poor animals are getting killed and I feel like they should be represented by something."
Meanwhile, the Pokémon Company just announced a dumb-looking mushroom Pokémon for its latest game, and I think we can all agree that Harambe would be better.
After Harambe was killed, the gorilla became an internet meme with surprising lasting power. On May 28, a 3-year-old boy climbed into the enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo that held Harambe, a 17-year-old, 450-pound Western lowland gorilla.
Fearing for the boy's life, the zookeepers shot and killed Harambe, sparking strong international outrage.
While some people earnestly mourned the gorilla, many others believed the ensuing backlash to be over-the-top, and so grieving him became a morbid joke.
Now that the Harambe meme has been merged with Pokémon GO, the hit game people still can't stop playing, it seems we've now reached peak internet.
