Just hand the trophy to the Cincinnati Bengals already, they’ve already won the internet. Thanks to defensive end Sam Hubbard, if they weren’t already, the Bengals just became the people’s choice to win the Super Bowl.
Hubbard says the Bengals want to win the Super Bowl “for Harambe”. While it’s been a few years, Harambe was a western lowland gorilla who was housed at the Cincinnati Zoo from 2014-16.
He was eventually killed in a controversial move after Harambe grabbed a three-year-old boy who had crawled into his gorilla enclosure. Once a worker at the zoo noticed Harambe had possession of the boy, he was shot dead, which caused many to be upset, wondering if some other, safer actions could have been taken with the 17-year old gorilla.
But it’s about much more than just a rare gorilla. After Harambe’s death, the internet took over, running with meme after meme, making gifs about the gorilla being the key to basically everything, pointing to his death as the reason for pretty much anything that went wrong. People made shirts, TV shows, video games, you name it, whatever they could to capitalize off Harambe’s fame. Now, the Bengals are joining the fray, but at least they have some local ties to the gorilla.
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Harambe possibly has unique tie to Cincinnati Bengals origin
The gorilla is actually an interesting tie-in to the originality of the Bengals franchise. As the locals of Ohio know, there are no Bengals in Cincinnati, which led me to the question one day. Why in the world is a Cincinnati franchise named the Bengals? How did that happen?
Some have suggested the team name originated from when the same Cincinnati Zoo had a white Bengal tiger. Some have also noted the name was likely chosen to shade or insult former Cleveland Browns team owner Art Modell.
Perhaps we’ll never know the true reason for the team name, but we will always remember, if the Cincinnati Bengals win their first Super Bowl on Feb. 13, it was for Harambe.
