After Boaty McBoatface, you’d think people would know better than to trust the Internet with naming things.
But as it turns out, Internet star Harambe – the gorilla who was shot at Cincinnati Zoo – has now ended up becoming the name of a water slide in Hobart, Australia.
Sweet? Or inappropriate?
Considering the Internet has taken to a series of dank memes in the months since Harambe died, I’m going to go with inappropriate.
The Doone Kennedy Hobart Aquatic Centre ran a competition on its Facebook page, announcing the winning entry in a post on Tuesday.
But it seems they missed the joke:
The post has since been deleted, but luckily for us, a screenshot made its way on to Reddit.
Soon enough though, the council running the centre tuned into what was happening. Needless to say, they weren’t too pleased.
General Manager of the City of Hobart, Nick Heath, said in a statement sent to Mashable Australia:
We were keen to promote a new piece of children’s play equipment in our leisure pool and for the public to feel some ownership of it, so we ran a naming competition.
We honoured the winning entry because the meaning behind the name aligned with the centre’s commitment to community participation in aquatic and wellness activities. The competition was run in good faith so it is unfortunate that what was intended to celebrate a popular new addition to the pool was hijacked by some.
As for the guy who won the competition, apparently he hasn’t been contacted with his free family pass yet. But considering the aquatic centre’s reaction to the whole situation, there’s a good chance he’ll probably never see it.
