Pepe: The Rise and Fall of an Icon
Pepe, you may or may not know of him, a beloved comic character, an iconic meme, and finally an infamous symbol of hate. Today you will receive the biography of pepe the frog.
One faithful day in 2005 a man named Matt Furie created a comic series called “Boy’s Club” about teenage monsters, and one of those monsters was named pepe the frog. Nobody paid much attention to this comic until 2008 when a comic strip was shown of pepe pulling down his pants all the way down to urinate and his word bubble said “feels good man” and from that day a meme was born. In 2009, the first remixed pepe appeared where he says “feels good man” instead of “feels bad man”. In the following years came the golden age of pepe memes. Countless remixes and evoltions of pepe appeared. Following is a chart of pepe’s evolution. Remixes of this meme included jpeg still images as well as gif versions of pepe.
At about 2014 pepe hit the mainstream, celebrities such as Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj both hae been documented using pepe in their social media accounts. Here and Here . Nicki Minaj’s use of a pepe meme is a clear descendent of the Sad pepe sub meme.
Something else that emerged around this time was the practice of collecting “rare pepes”. Meaning, people would make their own pepes, sometimes in the image of historical figures, pop culture icons, and situational pepes. People would also watermark their pepes so they won’t be stolen and at times it was just a comeptition to make the weirdest pepe possible even if it makes no sense. Sometimes people even posted their own rare pepe designs for sale on ebay. Following are some examples.
The QR code leads you to a google search for “DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED”. The arabic in the meme has a typo in the top word طرفك as you can see the dot on the ف is missing in the third letter from the right; the word means “your party”. It is unclear what the original creator of the meme was trying to say وجهي means “your face”. I suggest you to click into the source and read the thread of people investigating the meaning behind this meme. This is just one of many examples of rare pepes.
The next stage of pepes evolution takes a dark turn. He is appropriated by white nationalists and neo nazis during the 2016 American Presidential Election. In 2015, a photo of smug pepe (see evolution of pepe chart) drawn in the like of Donald Trump was posted to 4chan. Eventually this made it to the official twitter page of Donald Trump. This is when the entire alt-right movement adopted pepe as their personal mascot.
Pepe was drawn into confederate flags as well as on to the likes of hitler and KKK members and comics with burning crosses and the nazi swastika. In September of 2016, pepe was declared a symbol of hate by the anti-defamation league.
In October of 2016, Matt Furie, the original creator of pepe posted this on his blog.
On the same day TIME magazine published an op-ed by Matt Furie in which he criticizes the use of pepe the frog by the alt-right. This can be read here.
In May of 2017, the death of pepe. A comic by Furie was posted in which he depicts pepe in a open casket at his funeral. RIP 2005–2017
Feel free to contact me about any more information regarding pepe the frog, may he rest in peace.