And so we mourn the death of Cecil, the most important lion in the world, in the only way our fragile and clumsy human emotions can allow us: with cash-in merchandise, the gaudier the better. Goldgenie was the first on the scene with the £1,580 HTC One M9 mobile phone emblazoned with Cecil’s once-majestic silhouette, and 90s pension fund alternative Beanie Babies was quick to issue a memorial Cecil cuddly toy. RIP Cecil. It’s what he would have wanted.

Both the profits from the Goldgenie (a 10% cut) and Beanie Baby efforts (100%) will go to animal charities, which is nice, but that hasn’t stopped a bootleg market from springing up: over on merchandise portal Redbubble, it’s already possible to buy Cecil phone cases and RIP Cecil apparel including, predictably, a “Je Suis Cecil” T-shirt.

Meanwhile, there’s a Norwich pub naming its new beer Cecil’s Revenge and in Leeds a baker has created a memorial cake on which a marzipan Cecil mauls an icing-sugar dentist. The question isn’t why humans are so bad at dealing with distant animal loss, but rather: who on Earth is buying these things? Imagine yourself at a party. A Je Suis Cecil T-shirt walks up to you eating a big piece of Cecil cake. A big ol’ pull of Cecil beer. “Just going to take a call on my £1,500 gold mobile,” they are saying. They lean closer to you and whisper: “I have too much money.”

It’s hard not to imagine a futuristic hellscape where this is all we have: exquisite lions projected on all of our buildings (as Cecil has been on the Empire State Building), mane detailing laser-etched on all our gadgets, Cecil reminders peeking from every alcove and crevice. The news has been replaced with a rolling feed of which public school-named lions are alive or dead at any one time. James Corden gets ceremonially mauled by a lion for charity.

Cecil motifs will endure, but will our grief ever end? There is no way of knowing how to cope. But an £18 T-shirt with a lion on it is surely a step in the right direction.