The Evolution of Pepe

September 29, 2016 5:47 PM

In light of the Clinton campaign calling Pepe the Frog "a symbol associated with white supremacy" (which the ADL has now added to its online hate symbols database), The Atlantic interviews Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe: "My feelings are pretty neutral, this isn’t the first time that Pepe has been used in a negative, weird context. I think it’s just a reflection of the world at large. The internet is basically encompassing some kind of mass consciousness, and Pepe, with his face, he’s got these large, expressive eyes with puffy eyelids and big rounded lips, I just think that people reinvent him in all these different ways, it’s kind of a blank slate. It’s just out of my control, what people are doing with it, and my thoughts on it, are more of amusement."
posted by bookman117 (86 comments total)

tfw no hrc gf
posted by R.F.Simpson at 5:51 PM on September 29, 2016

feels bad, man
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:58 PM on September 29, 2016 [26 favorites]

Last week's Reply All dedicates much of the episode to talking about Pepe.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:01 PM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

Last week's Reply All dedicates much of the episode to talking about Pepe.

You can listen/read the transcript here.
posted by zamboni at 6:06 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Matt Furie mentioned, in another interview with Esquire, that he will be voting for Hillary.

There is such a thing as poetic justice.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:10 PM on September 29, 2016 [11 favorites]

I like Pepe as a cartoon, and I feel bad for Furie, especially as somebody who knows a bunch of random weird artists. It'd be like Meg and Mog from Megahex turning into Nazis or something.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:11 PM on September 29, 2016 [9 favorites]

Serious question, has anyone seen Dat Boi recently? I'm worried about him with all the craziness going on, you know?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:12 PM on September 29, 2016 [43 favorites]

Once (hardcore) white supremacists adopt something, it's ruined forever. Though Pepe might be obscure enough to avoid that fate. We'll see.

Glad that Furie seems to be taking this turn of events in stride, at least.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:13 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bernie: Rage faces
HRC: lolcats
Obama: Harlem Shake
Biden: YTMND
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:14 PM on September 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

If Furie isn't actively making rare pps for Hillary then he's part of the problem.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:15 PM on September 29, 2016 [9 favorites]

Bernie: Rage faces
HRC: lolcats
Obama: Harlem Shake
Biden: YTMND

All those memes were dead before Bernie emerged on the scene.
I guess this will increase the rarity of all the Pepes I have saved.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:27 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

"And in this part of our history, we enter what is known as 'The Stupid Ages'"
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 6:27 PM on September 29, 2016 [18 favorites]

I'll just leave this here: The Truth About Pepe the Frog and the Cult of Kek.
posted by gyc at 6:40 PM on September 29, 2016 [9 favorites]

I bought Boys Club #2 and #3 direct from Matt Furie on Etsy (and each one has a hand-drawn Pepe on the inside!) and they're still some of my favourite comics. The Pepe meme initially baffled me, then I was kind of happy to see Pepe take on a new life, then I was horrified by where it went. Literally horrified. How completely removed from the original intent of the character is what we see now? I'm baffled. And can you imagine creating something that has a life of it's own like this? Creating an image that goes on to be a avatar used by white supremacists? We need to reclaim it somehow.

Anyway buy the book.
posted by monkeymike at 6:42 PM on September 29, 2016

It'd be like Meg and Mog from Megahex turning into Nazis or something.

Megahex cost my library a few hundred bucks! I bought the first trade for the Adult Graphic Novels section, but because it had a cartoon witch on the cover, Cataloging sent it down to the Kids Graphic Novels area. Yes, even tho said witch is obviously smoking up and the book is full of Owl peen.

The Children's Librarian caught the book before an 8 year old did, but that then prompted us to spend a shit-ton of money on new stickers for all the graphic novels/comics in the building to make sure they were separated by color - even though if the book had been labeled right in the first place (based on, I dunno, the budget line it was charged to if not the straight up Owl rape), it never would have made it to the Children's Room, and the whole re-label thing was basically to allow the cataloger to save face.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:50 PM on September 29, 2016 [19 favorites]

Serious question, has anyone seen Dat Boi recently? I'm worried about him with all the craziness going on, you know?

He's doing the Lord's work.
posted by dhens at 6:55 PM on September 29, 2016 [10 favorites]

The candidates for US president and the media at large are weighing in on the issue of cartoon frogs from the internet. That is a real life true thing that is happening.
posted by anti social order at 6:55 PM on September 29, 2016 [47 favorites]

I am sure Twitch chat, where a lot of streamers have sub-only emotes based off of Pepe, will handle this development with its usual subtlety and aplomb. BibleThump
posted by dhens at 6:57 PM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

What's more baffling is things like Reagan using Born in the USA or Paul Ryan saying he's a big fan of Rage Against the Machine. Really Paul? Pepe's a blank slate with a neutral default. Appropriating an artists' work when it's so obvious they hate you seems so odd.

Reagan probably just liked the patriotic chorus. Paul probably thinks RATM is about small government and that cool coda that just repeats 'Fuck you I won't do what you tell me'.
posted by adept256 at 7:02 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pepe must face Michigan J. Frog! Want justice! Want Thunderdome! Two frogs enter, one frog leaves!
posted by octobersurprise at 7:08 PM on September 29, 2016 [10 favorites]

The entire conversation around pepe just feels incredibly surreal and almost made up to me. I was aware of the existence of a green frog that people modified, but I have still to this day never actually seen an earnest pepe, good or evil, in the wild. I even still have friends on facebook who are really into memes and shitposting and all that jazz. Nada. I don't want to sound like I'm doubting this is a thing, which I also gather is an issue, but seeing this go from "Oh, weird frog" to "Major news outlets reporting on popular green frog that is a Nazi symbol" in about a week makes me doubt reality. I'm still a millennial, but pepe is probably going to end up as the thing that I remember as the point I became old and out of touch.

There will be some fantastic political science student papers on this election and the cementing of meme culture into presidential campaigns someday, however.
posted by neonrev at 7:14 PM on September 29, 2016 [25 favorites]

Pepe-as-meme has always been more popular on 4chan and the 4channier parts of Reddit than on the rest of the internet. So, in retrospect, its co-option as a white supremacist symbol was almost inevitable.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:32 PM on September 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

Nah, there's a bunch of awesome Weird Facebook meme pages and ironic shitposting and vaporwave pages and such that used it for a bit, but part of the fun is them constantly mutating and changing so when co-workers show you a 'funny meme' you can point out that's its actually a month old normie meme.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:33 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

never actually seen an earnest pepe, good or evil, in the wild.

that's what makes pepe so rare
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:44 PM on September 29, 2016 [12 favorites]

feels bad man
posted by entropicamericana at 7:58 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I loved how Reply All mocked the notion of a "rare meme." It's exactly an oxymoron.
posted by Miko at 8:00 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I worried about Dat Boi but fortunately...
posted by supercres at 8:14 PM on September 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

The speed of the internet is pretty fast these days. Sometimes people think they've spotted the cowcatcher, but really they are looking at the caboose. And the caboose has been spray-painted with white supremacy symbols.

Okay, this analogy totally got away from me.

Feels bad. ◉︵◉
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:31 PM on September 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

The ADL press release is baffling because it reads like whoever wrote the press release didn't actually read the ADL's own database entry on Pepe.

The press release reads:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today identified “Pepe the Frog,” a cartoon character used by haters on social media to suggest racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted notions, as a hate symbol.

While the database entry itself reads:

However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes.

So it's not antisemitic by itself unless there's other stuff in the meme that makes it antisemitic. Well, yeah, I've seen antisemitic memes with Mickey Mouse but without that Mickey Mouse isn't antisemitic. So, yeah, Pepe by himself isn't antisemitic/bigoted but "images of the frog, variously portrayed with a Hitler-like moustache, wearing a yarmulke or a Klan hood" are.
posted by I-baLL at 8:47 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

it reads like whoever wrote the press release didn't actually read the ADL's own database entry on Pepe.

Except that they took the additional step of putting him on the hate symbol list because they no longer believe you can really separate Pepe from his racist use. I heard a fairly lengthy interview yesterday with an ADL spokesperson on All Things Considered. The upshot was that though indeed sometimes Pepe's context isn't antisemitic, at this point hatred has become the dominant usage of his image and unless/until that changes, Pepe is on the list of symbols identified with anti-Semitism. So they do of course understand what their database says, but the newer wrinkle is that Pepe overwhelmingly now appears in racist memes and only rarely, at this point, in innocuous contexts.
posted by Miko at 9:05 PM on September 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

Sometimes I feel like there's a magical person behind the curtain going to greater and greater extremes to distract us from things that are actually important.

Then I remember how much we crave distraction in the first place. We are easy, easy marks.
posted by rokusan at 9:06 PM on September 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

"Except that they took the additional step of putting him on the hate symbol list because they no longer believe you can really separate Pepe from his racist use."

Except that the database entry says the opposite of this.

" So they do of course understand what their database says, but the newer wrinkle is that Pepe overwhelmingly now appears in racist memes and only rarely, at this point, in innocuous contexts."

"Newer" wrinkle? The database entry is from September 27th, which is 2-3 days ago. Most of the uses of Pepe are not bigoted.

ALDWELL: He's - he claimed that people were working on a campaign to reclaim Pepe from the "normies," quote, unquote, by making anti-Semitic versions of him, right?

FRIEDMAN: So the theory is that Pepe started appearing in hateful memes so that celebrities and others would stop using him. The news media picked up on it. Hillary Clinton's campaign referred to Pepe as a symbol associated with white supremacy. It even popped up at a Clinton speech.

...

FRIEDMAN: Greenblatt says Pepe needs to be called out, even if that's what the creators of hateful memes want to see. Rose Friedman, NPR News.

This part of the interview focuses on the fact that anti-Semitic versions of him were created to prevent him from appearing in public media. The database, in my view, quite correctly points out that Pepe memes need to be called when they're bigoted. It specifically says that Pepe in itself (in himself?) is not bigoted, racist, nor antisemitic.
posted by I-baLL at 9:17 PM on September 29, 2016

There is no way anybody can keep track of the percentage of any popular meme that's anything. The Internet's way too big.
posted by michaelh at 9:19 PM on September 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

I loved how Reply All mocked the notion of a "rare meme." It's exactly an oxymoron.

thatsthejoke.jpg
posted by aydeejones at 9:29 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

thatsthejoke.jpg

That's not the joke. Rare pepes are rare because of their lack of saturation within a community not an ironic commentary on how they can be infinitely reproduced.

To collect rare pepes one needs a fairly epic 4chan folder and then not drilling them into the fucking ground by using them absolutely everywhere thereby keeping them rare.
posted by Talez at 9:52 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Here I'll try to illustrate.

Here's a rare Metafilter pepe.

There's nothing actually rare about him. Anyone can copy him. But to become a common pepe that pepe would need to be linked to something like for instance "Feels Metafilter Man" anytime anyone made that stupid "Metafilter: phrase quoted out of context that really isn't that funny" meme. If someone saved him, used him only at times that were actually appropriate and didn't drive him into the ground he would remain a rare pepe. He would then be used by people who had the foresight to save a pepe for the exact moment he was needed.
posted by Talez at 10:07 PM on September 29, 2016 [13 favorites]

I love the contortions some Internet article writers will throw themselves into to avoid acknowledging the endemic racism in Internet communities. From gyc's link:
To call this place a “white nationalist” or “alt-right” message board is categorically incorrect.
[...]
So when Donald J. Trump strolled onto the political scene in 2015, it was a match made in heaven.

Sounds pretty white supremacist to me. You don't need to identify as a member of the KKK to harbour incredibly racist attitudes (as the rather higher level of support for Trump than the KKK ably demonstrates).
posted by Dysk at 10:16 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

The only time I saw Pepe before all this was in the context of the Roseburg (OR) school shooting a year ago. So, never not been a symbol of hate to me.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 10:27 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

The real problem is morphic resonance
posted by fallingbadgers at 10:36 PM on September 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

The alt-right also keeps talking about 'meme magic' in relationship with Pepe, which sucks since 'meme magic' is such an awesome Grant Morrison/PopMagik/postmodern magic concept.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:50 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pepe is kind of a symbol of white supremacy in much the same way as the swastika.

For centuries and centuries, the swastika (generally squared and left-facing) was used in Asia as a religious symbol, and is in fact still often found at Buddhist temples, often even used as a symbol on maps to indicate these.

Later on, it was mirrored, rotated 45°, and co-opted as a symbol by basically a bunch of shits.

The origins of both have nothing to do with white supremacists, but are now largely associated with them because of the decision many have made to take this symbol and run with it.
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:51 PM on September 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

Boy's Club is also part of this week's Humble Forbidden Books ebook bundle.
posted by ymgve at 11:56 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's not the joke. Rare pepes are rare because of their lack of saturation within a community not an ironic commentary on how they can be infinitely reproduced.

From what I've seen, the thing isn't that rare pepes are literally rare. It's like some weird form of role playing where 4chan users pretend to live in a world where rare pepes have value. Nobody is actually filling their hard drive with rare pepes (Except to make mock screenshots showing their pepe folders).

You can also see the beginning of the racist connections in the "rare pepe" meme since their worth is often claimed to be measured in Shekels.
posted by ymgve at 12:10 AM on September 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

It makes me sad that Pepe has become a symbol of racism and antisemitism. I enjoy pepe memes.
posted by Braeburn at 12:42 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Matt Furie mentioned, in another interview with Esquire, that he will be voting for Hillary

Furie/Tingle 2016
posted by acb at 3:48 AM on September 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Furie: My feelings are pretty neutral, this isn’t the first time that Pepe has been used in a negative, weird context. I think it’s just a reflection of the world at large .... It’s just out of my control, what people are doing with it, and my thoughts on it, are more of amusement.

That is a majestic example of FIAMO.
posted by chavenet at 4:03 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm sure part of his amusement comes from the increased sales of his books that the proliferation of Pepe has resulted in. I get the impression in those interviews that he's really trying to skirt around saying anything like that, but it's probably been a bit of a small windfall for him. So while he admits to supporting Hillary and probably isn't a racist dickbag, he doesn't want to come right out and condemn the channers and alt-right too hard for coopting his work. And I'm not blaming him for that... just noting the weirdly neutral interview responses, given the circumstances.
posted by Roommate at 4:17 AM on September 30, 2016

Oh hey. I see Pepe on the front page of Buzzfeed as the headline picture for an article.

He's at a Trump rally being held by a guy who is wearing a shirt that says 'White Male"
I wonder what it could mean? /s

This is a link to the article. The picture is down near the bottom.
Trump Supporters Say Miss Universe Comments Are No Big Deal

posted by Jalliah at 4:38 AM on September 30, 2016

I'm disappointed that Furie's reaction is so shruggy. I could understand seeing your cartoon pissing on a Ford logo and thinking "oh well, what a crazy world." But it takes a pretty extraordinary level of either indifference or self-interest to see a drawing of a character you created gleefully putting real people in a gas chamber and have no comment.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:49 AM on September 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

It makes me sad that Pepe has become a symbol of racism and antisemitism. I enjoy pepe memes.

FTFY
posted by Slothrup at 4:52 AM on September 30, 2016

4chan: some weird form of role playing
posted by tobascodagama at 4:57 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

One "normal" place this shows up all the time is PredictIt, but now I'm starting to piece together the fact that reddit and 4chan probably send users to PredictIt boards.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:12 AM on September 30, 2016

But it takes a pretty extraordinary level of either indifference or self-interest to see a drawing of a character you created gleefully putting real people in a gas chamber and have no comment.

There could also be a level of not believing that the threat is as real as it is. Sure they say they want to do all these horrible things and it's bad but it's not going to actually happen. There's a level of denial about how serious it is.
posted by Jalliah at 5:20 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Simple fatalism seems like the most parsimonious explanation. The moment it became a meme, he was never getting that damned frog back, so why stress about it?
posted by tobascodagama at 5:30 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

If only he would loudly demand they stop, then they would for sure.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:32 AM on September 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

Simple fatalism seems like the most parsimonious explanation. The moment it became a meme, he was never getting that damned frog back, so why stress about it?

Yep, this is basically it. Pepe left him a long time ago. You can't put toothpaste back in the tube. What would the point be of stressing out about such things that are out of his control? Besides, latching too tightly onto the idea that Pepe is now effectively a swastika would only give the bad guys more power. Pepe is more like a pair of Doc Martens: yeah, some shitheads like him, but at the end of the day, he's a frog who likes to take off his pants to piss.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:40 AM on September 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

I've basically spent a full day trying to figure this story out from news coverage, and it turned out only five words were necessary to explain everything. "popular on 4chan's /pol/ board." So, thanks, metafilter!
posted by yeolcoatl at 5:55 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pepe is kind of a symbol of white supremacy in much the same way as the swastika.

Was there significant contemporaneous use of the swastika that wasn't anti-semitic? Because otherwise, it seems that is a salient difference between Pepe and the swastika.
posted by layceepee at 6:33 AM on September 30, 2016

Was there significant contemporaneous use of the swastika that wasn't anti-semitic?

Yes, and there had been for several thousand years. More from the US Holocaust Museum:

The swastika has an extensive history. It was used at least 5,000 years before Adolf Hitler designed the Nazi flag. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit svastika, which means “good fortune” or “well-being." The motif (a hooked cross) appears to have first been used in Neolithic Eurasia, perhaps representing the movement of the sun through the sky. To this day it is a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Odinism. It is a common sight on temples or houses in India or Indonesia. Swastikas also have an ancient history in Europe, appearing on artifacts from pre-Christian European cultures.

The symbol experienced a resurgence in the late nineteenth century, following extensive archeological work such as that of the famous archeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann discovered the hooked cross on the site of ancient Troy. He connected it with similar shapes found on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors.”

In the beginning of the twentieth century the swastika was widely used in Europe. It had numerous meanings, the most common being a symbol of good luck and auspiciousness. However, the work of Schliemann soon was taken up by völkisch movements, for whom the swastika was a symbol of “Aryan identity” and German nationalist pride.

posted by zombieflanders at 6:49 AM on September 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

@layceepee All of India and most of Asia. The swastika almost certainly has a far better hate to non-hate ratio than Pepe.
posted by yeolcoatl at 6:49 AM on September 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

Once (hardcore) white supremacists adopt something, it's ruined forever.

see also: The internet.
posted by JohnFromGR at 6:50 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm disappointed that Furie's reaction is so shruggy. I could understand seeing your cartoon pissing on a Ford logo and thinking "oh well, what a crazy world." But it takes a pretty extraordinary level of either indifference or self-interest to see a drawing of a character you created gleefully putting real people in a gas chamber and have no comment.

I think what he's ultimately saying is that the nature of the medium is such that it no longer makes sense to take responsibility for, or feel that you can control, the billions of others who have the potential to iterate on art that is already out there. Coming to terms with the futility of the possibility is a bit different than not agreeing with the negative ways in which original art is being used. Some artists have come to the terms with the latter being part of the price to pay to participate in public art, and as unfortunate as that is, it's on other people to not transgress, and it becomes a Sisyphean effort to invest much emotional effort otherwise. He's just doing better detaching himself from that reality than most people might.
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:53 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some time ago, on a street near my home, I was shocked to see swastikas chalked on the wall of a house, thinking that some awful Nazi graffiti act had been committed. A few days later I saw that there was an Indian family living in the house, and that it was they who had chalked the designs on the wall. Overall, quite a relief.
posted by Myeral at 7:23 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

He could use this opportunity to speak out about racism. He is not obligated to, but he could use his influence to connect t0 young white guys who might listen to him. The current culture has really let racism that used to be veiled, however thinly, come right out into the open.
posted by theora55 at 7:48 AM on September 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

NPR did an excellent post about this a couple days ago.

"First, if the entire concept of the Pepe the Frog meme makes no sense to you, don't try too hard to crack open the enigma.
Life is short, much of Internet communication is more Dada-esque than denotative, and mastering dank memes has an effort-to-payoff ratio that really, truly is not worth it."

posted by daniel striped tiger at 8:35 AM on September 30, 2016 [10 favorites]

Life is short, much of Internet communication is more Dada-esque than denotative, and mastering dank memes has an effort-to-payoff ratio that really, truly is not worth it."

Born too late for Dada.
Born too early for universal global enlightenment.

Born just in time to master dank memes.
posted by GuyZero at 8:41 AM on September 30, 2016 [15 favorites]

This whole thing reminds me of Joe Chemo. Like the interview linked above says:

CALDWELL: People started getting really bent out of shape about him being adopted by the mainstream internet.

FRIEDMAN: Celebrities were tweeting Pepe. He was all over Tumblr, and that rubbed some folks the wrong way.

CALDWELL: People, like, decided to make these campaigns to try to make him distasteful so that people like Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj wouldn't be tweeting him.

FRIEDMAN: The people behind the campaign were anonymous, but one of them was quoted in an article on The Daily Beast in May.

CALDWELL: He's - he claimed that people were working on a campaign to reclaim Pepe from the "normies," quote, unquote, by making anti-Semitic versions of him, right?

FRIEDMAN: So the theory is that Pepe started appearing in hateful memes so that celebrities and others would stop using him. The news media picked up on it. Hillary Clinton's campaign referred to Pepe as a symbol associated with white supremacy. It even popped up at a Clinton speech.

The usage of Pepe in racist memes was done exactly to discourage the common use of Pepe by the mainstream internet. Pepe's been in use normally for years and still is. Like that NPR article posted by daniel striped tiger points out. This basically seems like culture jamming techniques except being used against mainstream meme culture. It's a bit like a reverse Joe Chemo.
posted by I-baLL at 8:52 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

The usage of Pepe in racist memes was done exactly to discourage the common use of Pepe by the mainstream internet. Pepe's been in use normally for years and still is. Like that NPR article posted by daniel striped tiger points out. This basically seems like culture jamming techniques except being used against mainstream meme culture. It's a bit like a reverse Joe Chemo.

Yeah. I always find it amusing to see them claim Pepe is a white supremacist icon when BetterTTV basically has FeelsGoodMan and FeelsBadMan as emotes (along with RarePepe, FeelsAmazingMan, and FeelsBirthdayMan) and they've basically become part of the universal lexicon of Twitch.
posted by Talez at 9:20 AM on September 30, 2016

Oh, so they're only pretending to be white supremacists, because it's a funny way to create an in-group/out-group separation. That makes it so much better.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:53 AM on September 30, 2016 [8 favorites]

@layceepee All of India and most of Asia. The swastika almost certainly has a far better hate to non-hate ratio than Pepe.

In the context of this discussion, I think you are comparing "a swastika" to "the (Nazi) swastika." Otherwise, you would want the ratio anti-Semitic uses of Pepe to all uses of frog imagery.
posted by layceepee at 10:23 AM on September 30, 2016

Oh, so they're only pretending to be white supremacists, because it's a funny way to create an in-group/out-group separation. That makes it so much better.

And now you know why "shithole" barely begins to describe 4chan.
posted by GuyZero at 10:37 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

In the context of this discussion, I think you are comparing "a swastika" to "the (Nazi) swastika." Otherwise, you would want the ratio anti-Semitic uses of Pepe to all uses of frog imagery.

I'm really not sure what's with the defensiveness and need to prove how not-racist/anti-Semitic/etc the Pepe meme is here. The Nazi swastika is a swastika. It's a retooling of the symbols of ancient Germans and actual Aryans into a symbol of Christian white supremacy. Pepe is a retooling of the symbol of a webcomic into the same. All this talk about "culture jamming" and the like feels like handwaving a very uncomfortable truth.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:53 AM on September 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

Actually, earlier this year in an interview, Matt Furie admitted that he created all the pepes on the internet.
posted by cell divide at 11:42 AM on September 30, 2016

"Pepe is a retooling of the symbol of a webcomic into the same."

No, it is not. Like the ADL database says:

The majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted. However, it was inevitable that, as the meme proliferated in on-line venues such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit, which have many users who delight in creating racist memes and imagery, a subset of Pepe memes would come into existence that centered on racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted themes.

It's people using a popular meme in a bigoted/racist/anti-semitic context. It's not a retooling of a "symbol of a webcomic" but the usage of a popular meme character in racist memes. And, like the database points out, the majority of Pepe memes are completely innocuous.
posted by I-baLL at 11:46 AM on September 30, 2016

I have no idea whether Pepe is still widespread outside of right-wing circles - it certainly used to be though I feel like it is less so now. The issue is that people who are part of other/general internet subculture don't trust outside media to understand the history - and why would they? But actually I think a lot of places (including the ADL) have done just fine.

All this talk about "culture jamming" and the like feels like handwaving a very uncomfortable truth.

If the symbol has hijacked on purpose it seems... pretty accurate? Which says nothing in itself about whether it's advisable at this point to use Pepe in a given context. I will say though that given the limited shelf life of a meme - even though this one is already pretty old - I think there's a good chance that the Internet Right will be pretty successful in claiming this one. Unless they get bored of it first.
posted by atoxyl at 12:10 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's not a retooling of a "symbol of a webcomic" but the usage of a popular meme character in racist memes. And, like the database points out, the majority of Pepe memes are completely innocuous.

I...still don't understand how this is different from the Nazi use of the swastika, because that's exactly what happened to the swastika. Even if I use the swastika in a totally nonracist context, I can't divorce it from the cultural associations it's taken on.
posted by Miko at 1:20 PM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

One difference is that Pepe has "traditionally" been used as a vehicle to express a variety of ideas, which would explicitly be represented in the image. I mean I think that's the point people are trying to make - you could go and make an anti-racist frog cartoon right this minute if you wanted to. Whereas the swastika is more of a standalone symbol which the Nazis appropriated to represent "us, the Nazis, our literal flag" and which has henceforth never been fully separable from that. White supremacists seem to be trying to make poor Pepe a standalone symbol of their movement though, taking advantage of its (maybe?) fading popularity with everybody else. Note that another difference is that the swastika was an ancient symbol, rather than "ten years old" and still did not escape permanent association with racism - of course in South Asia people do still use the older versions.
posted by atoxyl at 2:26 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I guess I just don't think it's particularly weird that people feel like they have to clarify the history. There's a lot of stuff out there with that frog that it really would be unfair to make assumptions about without context.
posted by atoxyl at 2:47 PM on September 30, 2016

There is a huuuuuuuuge logical leap from "/pol/-type people use Pepe in offensive crap" to "Pepe is now categorically a hate symbol". Pepe is not inherently like a swastika. Ceding Pepe to /pol/ gives them unearned power and undue pleasure. Symbols only have the power that we give them. Pepe is nascent and amorphous enough such that there is no good reason to suddenly say "WALP A RACIST USED HIM, GUESS HE'S TAINTED FOREVER".

Pepe is coming up now because of the election. Vocal *ist trolls are using him because they're big fuckin' nerds. Big fuckin' nerds like you and me, except they're shitty ones. Don't *give* them Pepe, ferchrissakes! Take back Pepe! Maybe use him for good. Or, just use him for chill. Just drown out the noisemakers.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:06 PM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also, note that it is *the Clinton campaign* that is raising the issue of Pepe. The /pol/ critters had been using Pepe only because...well, it's 4chan, which above all things is has always been a blender for memes. Pepe has been all over the internet for quite a while.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:09 PM on September 30, 2016

As 4chan raison d'etre seems to be the ultimate troll website, and Trump is the ultimate troll candidate, all this moaning about a nazi cartoon frog seems like one big delicious bowl of troll juice.

Streisand Effect, anyone?
posted by scelerat at 3:42 PM on September 30, 2016

White supremacists seem to be trying to make poor Pepe a standalone symbol of their movement though

That's kind of enough for me. It's also just super helpful to know for the many many people in the world that absolutely have no clue what Pepe is about (see the Yes Yes No No on the Reply All episode - and those guys do a podcast about the Internet).

Take back Pepe!

Have at it, I guess. I just wonder, who for? It's already kind of a niche world.
posted by Miko at 4:06 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

DoctorFedora: “Pepe is kind of a symbol of white supremacy in much the same way as the swastika. For centuries and centuries, the swastika (generally squared and left-facing) was used in Asia as a religious symbol, and is in fact still often found at Buddhist temples, often even used as a symbol on maps to indicate these. Later on, it was mirrored, rotated 45°, and co-opted as a symbol by basically a bunch of shits. The origins of both have nothing to do with white supremacists, but are now largely associated with them because of the decision many have made to take this symbol and run with it.”

Yes, which once again makes clear the fact that people who believe in the supremacy of 'white' culture have never created anything whatsoever of value themselves, and have only ever stolen things from others.
posted by koeselitz at 4:31 PM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Have at it, I guess. I just wonder, who for?

For Kappa!
posted by Talez at 4:33 PM on September 30, 2016

I'm glad Get Out Frog's sterling reputation remains unbesmirched.
posted by gyc at 4:57 PM on September 30, 2016

That settles it. I'm voting for the frog. It's not his fault people tell lies about him.

Orange hair--really?
posted by mule98J at 5:51 PM on September 30, 2016