Post by the Scribe on Mar 4, 2021 10:46:33 GMT
How 'Pepe The Frog' Became A Symbol Of Hatred
www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2017/05/09/how-pepe-the-frog-became-a-symbol-of-hatred/?sh=2b1308e3426b
Dani Di PlacidoSenior Contributor
I write about film, television, pop culture, and other fun stuff.
Andrew Knight holds a sign of Pepe the frog, unlikely alt-right icon. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty... [+]
Regardless of who you are, you’ve probably seen Pepe’s smug, fat-lipped face smirking at you from your monitor. Perhaps he randomly popped up on your Facebook timeline, headlining a meme, or even made an unlikely appearance as the main headline in your newspaper of choice.
Pepe’s original creator, Matt Furie, recently killed his infamous frog, by drawing a strip of him lying dead in a casket. Pepe may be dead inside the world of Furie’s comic strip, but online, he is very much alive and well.
Furie killed Pepe to communicate his displeasure over the fact the frog appears to have become an unlikely poster child for intolerance. You may be asking yourself how on earth this crudely drawn cartoon became associated with bigotry. Well, it’s a bit of a strange story.
Pepe first appeared in the fairly unremarkable webcomic Boys Club, in which he was one of four anthropomorphic animal flatmates. The comic centered around crude bodily humor, pot smoking, and psychedelics.
Pepe’s breakout moment came when one strip depicted him peeing standing up, with his pants all the way down to his ankles. When Pepe is questioned over his unusual choice, he responds with, “feels good, man.” In that one simple statement, Pepe proved that he didn’t give a toss about societal expectation, and simply does, well, whatever feels good.
Something about Pepe’s relaxed attitude towards urination resonated with the masses, and Pepe’s likeness was stolen from the comic and posted on sites like Myspace, Gaia Online, and 4chan, along with his simple slogan. At this point, he was simply known as “Feel Good Frog.” Talk about something you enjoy, and you post a picture of Feel Good Frog to emphasize your point. Pretty simple stuff.
Eventually, somebody photoshopped Pepe’s smile upside down, and changed his quote to “feels bad, man.” And thus, Pepe’s emotional range began to grow. Suddenly, Pepe blossomed into a diverse meme that became a template for any kind of concept one wanted to convey.
Pepe memes sprouted like weeds as the internet claimed him as their own. Pepe could mean anything you wanted to, and at heart, didn’t really mean anything.
As Pepe grew in “mainstream” popularity, his original user base started to grow jealous, like possessive hipsters annoyed at the breakout success of the band they liked before they were cool. So they began to post Pepe memes with bizarre, offensive and often, outright racist themes, in a crude attempt to turn him away from the masses and back into the underground.
But Pepe’s popularity continued to soar, and his hateful side began to grow, as both harmless trolls and genuine racists continued to pump out Nazi-themed Pepe memes.
At this point, Pepe was not considered an alt-right icon, but something resembling a Mickey Mouse for nerds. But during the turmoil of last year’s chaotic presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton pulled Pepe out of the dark corners of the web and introduced him to the general public.
Now, regardless of how you feel about Hillary Clinton, we can all agree that she isn’t exactly down with the kids. So when she denounced Pepe the frog as a symbol of hatred, the internet practically drowned in laughter. But this was the general public's first proper introduction to Pepe, and first impressions tend to stick.
After the laughter died, the media continued to label Pepe as an alt-right icon, and the alt-right dutifully embraced him. Suddenly, Pepe was now associated with red pills, convoluted conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump. Trump himself even tweeted an image of Pepe in his own likeness, forever cementing the frog to himself, and to the most extreme of his supporters.
The transformation was complete, and Pepe was officially branded a hate symbol, by the Anti-Defamation League, no less.
So, there you have it. That’s how a stoner frog who likes to pee with his pants down came to be viewed on similar terms to a swastika; a bizarre situation birthed from a growing generational divide, a huge misunderstanding of the nature of internet culture.
Imagine if those irritating Minion memes your auntie posts on Facebook became associated with Neo-Nazis, and you’ll understand just how ridiculous the concept is. But sadly, what’s done is done, and Pepe is pretty much official property of the alt-right. Hence, Matt Furie’s decision to kill him off. But Pepe escaped Furie’s control a long, long time ago, and his death is merely an acknowledgment of that.
However you feel about Pepe, his evolution from carefree frog to beacon of racial hatred is undeniably fascinating. But Pepe continues to evolve, and in the future, may end up meaning something else entirely.
Perhaps, one day, he’ll feel good again.
