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(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Stills)

Fri 14 June 2024 23:00, UK

The internet can be a dark, dangerous, desperate, and unruly place at the best of times, with Matt Furie powerless to stop his comic book creation Pepe the Frog become co-opted to such a degree by right-wing politics that its now officially listed as a hate symbol.

The artists comic Boys Club #1 was released in 2005, with the innocent enough by online standards, anyway drawing of a frog with his trouser around his ankles taking a piss and uttering what would soon become his catchphrase of feels good, man quickly spreading like wildfire on the internet.

Reaction memes have been part of online culture for a long time, so a deadpan amphibian with a signature phrase that was applicable to a wide variety of situations was seized upon as a malleable, infinitely reusable source of mirth among users. By the mid-2010s, Pepe was basically a hero to millions and one of the internets most popular memes until it became political.

After gaining increasing traction among alt-right groups, by September 2016, the Anti-Defamation League had added Pepe to its list of hate symbols, a roster that also includes the insignias of Adolf Hitlers Nazi party and the Ku Klux Klan. Suffice it to say, this was not what Furie had in mind for his creation.

Right-wing supporters and white supremacist groups had taken an unsettling shine to Pepe, with racist and antisemitic variants of the meme being popularised, shared, and spread across social media. The ADL issued a statement decrying those groups for abusing the image of a cartoon character one that might at first seem appealing to harass and spread hatred on social media.

Pepe even infiltrated mainstream American politics when the alt-right fully embraced Home Alone 2 star Donald Trumps presidential candidacy. The former host of The Apprentice and his inner circle shared and retweeted Pepe memes on social platforms, with his opponent Hillary Clinton insisting that cartoon frog is more sinister than you might realise.

It obviously wasnt his intention, with Furie voicing his disdain for what had become of his most famous creation in an interview with Esquire. Describing its alt-right status as a runaway train, he expressed regret for indirectly being responsible for something that was entirely out of his control.

The people who are driving this train are these anonymous internet trolls who dont stand for anything except for nihilism and getting a rise out of whatever racist or sexist or disgusting thing they can do, he said. Its just an idiotic joke. They kind of seem like this group that tried to intellectualise white power, and theyve appropriated Pepe for that. It sucks, but I cant control it more than anyone can control frogs on the internet.

He didnt agree with the ADLs decision to make Pepe a hate symbol, either, because from his perspective: Its not going to do anything other than give this fringe racist group more attention than they need. Nobody really seems sure how it ended up becoming a far-right staple in the first place, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how hard anybody tries to reclaim it, the frog remains forever tainted by association.

Go here to read the rest:
How has Pepe the Frog become a far-right icon? - Far Out Magazine