I don’t see any memes about Lady the gorilla. It could be because she wasn’t shot, but still. And YouTube videos with intelligent animals don’t get as much attention as the ones with the “silly” animals.
Have you ever seen a hair on a piece of soap?
Because people viewing videos of intelligent animals leads to self-inspection of their own intelligence and their impact on the world. The viewers of these intelligent animals begin to comprehend how cruel it is that some number of these intelligent animals are locked in zoos, or killed for trophies, or mistreated for amusement. The intelligent animal videos force a viewer to confront the realities involved in man’s dominance over animals and the resulting feelings generated in the viewer scares him or her. Being afraid is an unpleasant feeling, one which most people tend to avoid.
Or, cats falling off of tables is just damn funny.
Shorter answer: I prefer silly animals to intelligent ones. This applies to people as well.
A lot of people don’t even really care about other people very much. Animals are a real stretch.
Which is why Trump won the election.
Some dogs, though, are apparently too stupid to pass their SATS.
I care, and I am willing to bet many people care. I can’t help, in my measly little life everyone I care about, though I would love to. I donate and volunteer at my local shelter. If we all do some, more will get done. And quit watching those memes and people will quit posting them. Or post some brilliant animals doing things. It might go viral.
I been giving money to try and save intelligent and not so intelligent wildlife b/c of the orange animal in the white house !
You play off being shot as being not a big deal, but it’s the entire point of the Harmbe meme. People all feel he was killed unnecessarily. People were upset about that, and anger spreads.
Lady the gorilla apparently died of natural causes in her sleep. The vast majority of people have probably never even heard of her. If some human dies who no one has heard of, do people make a big deal about them? Not unless there was something special about their death.
As for the video, we are wired to like “cuteness,” which is, to a first approximation, neoteny. We have a caregiver instinct towards that which is young and helpless, not the smart animals that do so well fending for themselves.
That said, it’s not like smart animals never became memes. Coco the gorilla, with her high intelligence and ability to communicate became a pretty big meme–particularly when shown interacting with famous humans, like Mr. Fred Rogers. And there are some videos that are just about how smart an animal is. Monkey videos aren’t unheard of, for example. Animals acting like humans is a big thing online, too.
People don’t know Lady, and her death didn’t involve anything unusual, so it’s not at all surprising that people aren’t making a big deal out of it.
I’m sure people who went to the Al Ain zoo care, don’t get me wrong. And I’m sure the Barney thing meant she had some fans who are now mourning her death. But the rest of us, she’s just someone we didn’t know who died. Yeah, it’s sad, but I don’t really see any reason to spread a meme about her.
(Honestly, if I tried, I think it might come off badly, since so many people hate Barney the Dinosaur.)