Fearless Girl Statue Replaced By Gorilla

Developers of a social networking platform installed a 7-foot-tall statue of Harambe, the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla, in front of the famous Charging Bull statue on Wall Street.

The gorilla statue took the place once occupied by Fearless Girl, a statue of a young girl standing in apparent defiance of Wall Street’s Charging Bull. Fearless Girl was removed in November 2018.

Founders of the social media platform, Sapien.Network, also placed 10,000 bananas beneath Charging Bull as part of the display to show that Wall Street has gone “bananas,” NBC News 4 reported. According to the founders, Sapien.Network is “dedicated to putting the needs and welfare of human beings first.”

“It’s not about rejecting capitalism or the current system. It’s about revolving them into the current future and letting them empower more groups of people. That’s the whole point of this story,” Sapien.Network co-founder Robert Giometti said, according to NBC News 4.

Wall Street has been a subject of debate in Washington, as the carried interest loophole providing low tax rates for Wall Street money managers was preserved in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending bill in September.

Sapien.Network co-founders Tejay Aluru and Ankit Bhatia joined Giometti in saying that they see Harambe as a representation of Americans’ struggles under capitalism, which “enriches wealthy elites and leaves the average person behind,” in their view.

Harambe was shot dead at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2016 after a child climbed into the gorilla enclosure. Harambe did not harm the child, and some observers noted that he appeared to be protecting the child. The incident received much public attention for months afterward, sparking both debates about primates in captivity and thousands of online memes.