The History of Pepe the Frog
When talking about meme history one must never forget Pepe the frog. Pepe the frog is a major part of meme history as it represents a time where a meme has affected real life events. Hey Netizens, Paolo here back at it again with another blog post and this time its about the infamous 4chan meme turned cryptocurrency Pepe the Frog. Started back in 2005 as a comic character by Matt Furie. Pepe the Frog only had one reaction face at the time which was the feels good man reaction used widely for 3 years on forums such as 4chan.
After 2008 Pepe the Frog was transformed to show the opposite emotion which also gained popularity as the feels bad man reaction side of the meme. This prompted a multitude of other Pepe the Frog meme reactions to surface such as an angry version and a smug version which is still used today. As the decade turned the meme has been turned into many different artworks which were used to sell on sites like eBay. Shortly after the Pepe the Frog meme had its own currency to trade many kinds of versions of the meme. The cryptocurrency related to the meme is called Pepe Cash.
Eventually the meme devolved into a hate symbol, twisted by the users of the random image board section of 4chan turning the once harmless meme into a hate symbol. The first of these devolutions was the association of Pepe with a school shooter that an anonymous user used to start a thread on 4chan to warn other users of the impending attack on a college in the Northwest United States. The symbol turned into a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt right symbol. The perversion of the meme encompassed most of 4chan’s political views in the United States as well. The last evolution of Pepe would see him appropriated as a Luciferian deity with the belief that Pepe’s will be to make Trump win the election and smite Clinton. This meme although associated with many bad events in real life remains to be a popular meme among Netizens to show the emotion behind their words. The video linked below by Shots Fired details the history of the meme and explains the significance and importance Pepe has in teaching the history of memes and its affect on the world. This blog entry has been a little heavy but I felt it was important to explain a significant part of our meme history so that we do not repeat the same mistakes and sorry for the hiatus I have been a bit busy lately but I will post more regularly. This is Paolo signing off.