Harambe will live forever!

Do you remember where you were when the beloved gorilla from the Cincinnati Zoo went viral for the first time? I remember being in my 10th-grade World History final when my teacher, the incomparable Coach Bates, remarked upon the tragic loss of an icon. At the time, I would never have thought the Harambe meme would live on in our collective memory for at least a decade, but how wrong I was!

This week, a viral tweet proclaimed that 2016 nostalgia Harambe merchandise is being sold at Rainforest Cafe gift shops across the nation! If they had sold such merch in the wake of the tragedy, there is no question that it would’ve been a scandal of the highest order. Now that the dust has settled and the meme is as over as Harambe, brands can capitalize on his superstar status with relatively little pushback.