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Also known as: Sad Frog

Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character that has become a popular Internet meme (often referred to as the "sad frog meme" by people unfamiliar with the name of the character). The character first appeared in 2005 in the on-line cartoon Boy's Club. In that appearance, the character also first used its catchphrase, "feels good, man."

The Pepe the Frog character did not originally have racist or anti-Semitic connotations. Internet users appropriated the character and turned him into a meme, placing the frog in a variety of circumstances and saying many different things. Many variations of the meme became rather esoteric, resulting in the phenomenon of so-called "rare Pepes."

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.

In recent years, with the growth of the "alt right" segment of the white supremacist movement, a segment that draws some of its support from some of the above-mentioned Internet sites, the number of "alt right" Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election. Though Pepe memes have many defenders, the use of racist and bigoted versions of Pepe memes seems to be increasing, not decreasing.

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.

In the fall of 2016, the ADL teamed with Pepe creator Matt Furie to form a #SavePepe campaign to reclaim the symbol from those who use it with hateful intentions.

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Pepe the Frog - adl.org

Clemson University made national news last semester when an resident adviserremovedmemes of Harambe, the slain gorilla, from dorms, calling them rape culture. Hoping to avoid similar controversy, the University required all RAs to attend free-speech training earlier this month, warning them that even dorm-room decorations deemed offensive could not be removed. But it nowlooks like one RA wasnt paying attention.

On Jan. 16 less than a week after the mandatory free-speech trainingJay Sridharan, an RA in the Cope Hall dorms, removed memes of Pepe, a cartoon frog appropriated by the alt-right and often associated with racism. In their place, Sridharan hung generic, orange sports decorations.

One student, who asked not to be named, said the customized Pepe memes were our old RAs parting gift. All residents on the hall receiveda custom Pepe door decoration.

By deadline, Sridharan did not respond to my request for comment. But on social media, he told one resident he didnt think anyone cared to keep them. He wrote, I threw them away whenever I put up your new ones, sorry bud.

Clemsons director of residential living, Leasa Evinger, compared the removal to replacing out of date bulletin board content.

But during the mandatory free-speech training, Evinger explicitly told RAs that students rooms, doors, and apartments were theirs for their First Amendment expression.

She also instructed RAs, You cannot remove anything from their door, from their room, or even ask them specifically to remove anything from their door or their room. Just because theyre graphic and offensive to me in some way, I cant take that door dec down.

EvingerconfirmedtoHeat Street that RAs were not supposed to remove anything posted by residents, also noting that these were technically posted by the previous RA.

I assure you that we are continually workingwith our staff to help them understand their role and responsibility to uphold students First Amendment Rights, Evingersaid.

Cope Hall is part of Clemsons Shoebox dorms, the same part of residential housing where the Harambe memes were removed in September.

I miss my Pepe, because it was my personal meme that made everyone who came over laugh, the resident said. Now it seems that at least our RA forgot about that free speech training.

Mitchell Gunter is a senior Civil Engineering student at Clemson University.

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Flyers Featuring Controversial 'Pepe the Frog' Removed from Clemson Students' Doors - Heat Street

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Heat Street Editor and former British Conservative MP Louise Menschhas writtenan article agreeing with the establishment media and Clinton campaigns claims that Pepe the Frog is a white supremacist icon.Mensch apologized for another Heat Street article by Ian Miles Cheong, who defended the innocent green frog meme last week.

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Under the title Hillary Clinton Is Absolutely Right, Pepe Meme Is Antisemitic An Apology, Mensch apologized for Cheongs defence of the cartoon frog, claiming that the piece was inaccurate.

We apologize for publishing it, she wrote, adding an editors note on Cheongs story:This article was wrong and we should never have published it.Pepe the Frog is antisemitic.

Heat Street, backed by Rupert Murdochs News Corp, boasts in its motto: Free speech celebrated. No safe spaces.

Quoting Cheongs claims that no single group or ideology has ownership of the meme, Mensch argues: That is untrue. While Pepe, once a harmless frog meme, may have started out as a widely used meme, the frog is now a symbol of the Nazi Jew-baiting of the alt-right.

Her hyperlinked evidence of this blanket statement is a Google Drive foldertitled Pepe that contains a dozen Nazi-themed Pepe alterations. A Trump/Pepe image, with no Nazi imagery, is included. Nineof the 22 images in the folder do not feature Pepe illustrations at all.

That is the entirety of her argument: one dozen Nazi variants out of thousands of Pepes across the Web. Below I show some handful of antisemitic Pepe / Trump memes, they are everywhere, she writes, before linking to the Drive folder again. She makes no case for theimplicit suggestion that using a Pepe meme without Nazi or anti-Semitic imagery (i.e., the vast majority of Pepe memes) is automatically an embrace of Nazism and anti-Semitism.

Cheong, the managing editor of Gameranx and aprominent playerin the GamerGate controversy, has since retracted the claims of his original piece, stating that he was wrong about Pepe. Cheong reiterates Menschs claims that It has, in fact, become an anti-semitic meme.

Mensch has not yet added an editors note to another Heat Street article contradicting the far lefts white nationalism narrative. Last week, contributor William Hicks posted a piece sarcastically calling pop stars Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj white supremacists for spreading Pepes on their social media accounts.

This article was likely pushing back on the political lefts claim that Donald Trumps son is a racist for posting a Pepe on his Instagram. Mensch is now putting the full force of her editorial authority behind that left-wingnarrative.

Pepe is a cartoon frog who began his Internet life as an innocent meme enjoyed by teenagers and pop stars alike. But in recent months, Pepes been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the alt-right, wrote Elizabeth Chan on behalf of the Clinton campaign last week, in an explainer thatattempted to link the Internet meme with white supremacy.Theyve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.

The explainer based its comments largely on a Daily Beast interview with notorious troll and self-proclaimed parody account, Jared Taylor Swift, who made satirical comments about reclaiming Pepe from the normies. Swift and a fellow troll, Paul Town, later told the Daily Caller that they gave the Daily Beasts Olivia Nuzzi the most ridiculous quotes they could think of and she printed them, falling entirely for the troll. With noevidence but Nuzzis discredited piece, mainstream media reporters have uncritically declared the frog to be anicon for white nationalism on air, including NBCs Katy Tur and ABCs George Stephanopoulos.

Mensch fails to state that the creator of Pepe the Frog, Matt Furie, is actually a Democrat who expressed support for Hillary Clintons campaign, after his favorite candidate, Bernie Sanders, dropped out of the race.

Its weird that people are saying hes been a longtime white supremacist meme, said Furie, who denied that his frog had anything to do with white supremacy. If anything hed be part of the Green party. Hes a frog, why would he support white supremacists? That doesnt make anysense.

But she doesnt need to analyze or even acknowledge any of that information. She has a folder with 12 Nazi Pepes in it, and that is enough for her to shut down any other interpretation.

Charlie Nash is a reporterforBreitbart Tech. You can follow himon Twitter@MrNashingtonorlike his page at Facebook.

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Heat Street Apologizes for Saying Pepe the Frog Isn't Anti ...

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You had an Instagram post last week that included Pepe the Frog, which is now a well-known symbol of the whitesupremacist movement, Stephanopoulos alleged in an interview on ABCs Good Morning America.

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Trump Jr responded by saying, Ive never even heard of Pepe the Frog. I bet 90% of your viewers havent heard of Pepe the Frog. I thought it was a frog in a wig I thought it was funny, I had no idea that there was any connotation there.

He added that the accusations against Pepe werea sign that journalists cannot credibly attack his fathers policy proposals. They dont even have answers for those things. So what do they do? They have to attack me.

The row over Pepe the Frog, a popular Internet meme in use since 2008, was initiated by the Clinton campaign afterElizabeth Chan, one of Clintons senior strategists, wrote a blog post in which she claimed Pepe was a symbol associated with white supremacy.

Stephanopoulos also referencedBreitbart TecheditorMilo Yiannopoulos in the photo, though not by name. There areothers in there who have been taken off Twitter because of their racist statements, he said. Milo is theonly person in the photo to have had their Twitter account suspended.Twitter, in its justification of the lifetime ban, falsely stated that Yiannopoulos incited harassment after Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones complained directly to Jack Dorsey, the social media companys CEO.

Earlier in the interview, Trump pushed back against accusations that he made a Holocaust joke about the gas chamber method of capital punishment. He cited his relationship with his sister, a convert to Orthodox Judaism, and several close friends, then recalled how he made the same joke but said electric chair just weeks ago.

Trump said this controversy illustrated why a recent Gallup poll showed that the American publics trust of journalists has reached a record low. If youre a conservative, you dont even get a fair shot, he said. They dont even give you the benefit of the doubt Its why less than a third of Americans even trust the media anymore.

Stephanopoulos did not disclose during this interview, and does not disclose during coverage of the 2016 election, that heworked in the White House as Senior Adviser to the President during Bill Clintons first term. ABC News has designated Stephanopoulos the lead anchor in its 2016 election coverage.

You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew,oremail him at ben@yiannopoulos.net

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George Stephanopoulos: Pepe the Frog Well-Known Symbol of ...

After Donald Trumps inauguration on Friday, alt-right leader Richard Spencer was punched in the face while being interviewed on-camera.

Spencer was punched while talking to a reporter about the significance of Pepe the frog a cartoon character that white nationalists haveco-opted as their own symbol.

Pepe the Frogcreator Matt Furie has commented on the incident on Tumblr.

Tumblr userpatchesthegreatasked Furie, How do you feel knowing Richard Spencer got decked mid-sentence describing Pepe? Furie responded as such:

The brilliantly succinct response is currently going viral on Twitter and has over 4,000 notes on Tumblr.

In October of last year, Furie had teamed up with the Anti-Defamation League in an attempt to return Pepe to his former glory as a simple, chill frog. The effort launched #SavePepe across social media platforms, so as to overshadow Pepes more profane alter egos.

Despite the punch during his Pepe talk, Spencer still has a frog emoji in his Twitter name. So, its probably worthwhile to say this again: #SavePepe.

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Pepe Creator's Brilliantly Succinct Response To Alt-Right Leader Getting Punched - Huffington Post