The Brief: Images of a chocolate gorilla melting in almond milk have been turned into memes about someone trying to share a message as they disappear.
DEEP DIVE
In early August 2020, image macro memes depicting a chocolate gorilla melting in a pot of milk started spreading on Reddit, specifically on the Dank Memes subreddit. The original images in this meme format come from a 2018 post on r/pics by user u/GallowBoob titled “melting a chocolate gorilla in almond milk.”
These four images show a chocolate gorilla melting and getting smaller until only his head can be seen. The last panel is just a pot of chocolate milk. Meme-makers have been using the gorilla melting in chocolate format to depict scenarios in which the gorilla is about to reveal a secret, but he melts before he can share the entire thing. These sometimes include the lines “listen kid” and “I don’t have much time” before a teaser for a secret and then silence in the last panel.
Many of these memes deal with secrets about the inner workings of Reddit, which are often a subject of debate on the site.
Choco Gorilla Melting meme template from MemeTemplatesOfficial
This meme reversed the order of the images so that the gorilla appears to be emerging from the milk as if revived from the dead. Of course, this was used for a Harambe reference.
“So anyway, it all started in 2016 when Harambe died.” from dankmemes