Pepe Politics

[clyde]

 

I'm interested in discussing the gist of what's going on with the Pepe meme right now. I have no attachment to the meme itself, but I'm fascinated by how it is being batted around politically.

 

Here are some articles, I'll include brief descriptions or quotations:

 

How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol

The campaign to reclaim Pepe from normies was an effort to prevent this sort of death, but it also had the effect of desensitizing swaths of the Internet to racist, but mostly anti-Semitic, ideas supported by the so-called alt-right movement.

 

Here’s How Two Twitter Pranksters Convinced The World That Pepe The Frog Meme Is Just A Front For White Nationalism

“There was no ‘plot’ to take a cartoon frog and make it a symbol of white supremacy,” Paul Town told TheDCNF. “That’s absurd on the face of it.”

It doesn’t get much better from there for Nuzzi’s narrative.

 

The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It’s that, but way way weirder.

But in recent years, a vocal right-wing contingent has popped up. As New York magazine's Brian Feldman explains, part of this is an artifact of 4chan gaining popularity and its popular catchall board — /b/ — losing ground to alternatives, notably /pol/, or the "Politically Incorrect" chat board. "To the extent that there is a shared political ideology across /pol/, it’s a heavily ironic mix of garden-variety white supremacy and neo-reactionary movements," Feldman writes.

 

...and the explainer from Hillary Clinton's website.

 

But in recent months, Pepe’s been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the “alt-right.” They’ve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.

 

I don't have a thesis or anything. I just think that this is really interesting and it evokes a lot of ideas about signifiers and political implications of internet-culture/identity.

[Problem Machine]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a large enough segment of the population believes something is a nazi symbol... that basically makes it one, doesn't it? I mean that's how symbols work, right?

[Gormongous]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a large enough segment of the population believes something is a nazi symbol... that basically makes it one, doesn't it? I mean that's how symbols work, right?

 

That's the case with the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, so I think you're correct, yes.

[clyde]

The Truth About Pepe The Frog and The Cult of Kek

https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com

You see, one of the core tenets of Chaos Magick practice (the only mainstay, really) is the creation of magic sigils (also called “glyphs”) to “codify and project one’s Will into the Universe.”

[clyde]

Inside /pol/, the 4chan Politics Board Shouted Out in Minneapolis Gun Video

http://nymag.com/selectall/2015/11/inside-pol-4chans-racist-heart.html

People are racist and hateful on /pol/ not for attention or reaction, but because they are. It’s jeering and ironic in the manner of all anonymous online discussion, but when people are filming themselves pointing guns at the camera and saying “stay white,” it’s hard to get the joke.

Obviously I'm still trying to clarify this all in general enough terms where it will actually be applicable, but here is an idea:

It seems like this mess operates like a fandom where the canon is instances of their characters showing up in national news-media coverage.

[Goggles]

I never really associated Pepe with white supremacy personally, though I'm sure it was used on /pol/, /b/ and the less savory parts of Reddit frequently. However, to Problem Machine's point, I think that the recent reporting of Pepe as a white supremacist icon may very well shift it to being a white supremacist icon, since a lot of (probably most) people's first interaction with Pepe will be with discussion of the meme through that lens.

[Mawd]

I think I first saw it on a forum last year used by a bunch of people who obviously hanged out on 4 and 8ch /pol/ boards. Since then it kinda erupted on twitch, reddit, etc and spent a good while being the main 'dank meme' everyone ironic and edgy liked. Since then I mostly just see it used by alt right trump people. 

I think I've seen it go from being used by super hard core /pol/ people to the milder trump people.

[Vorlonesque]

I first saw it (pepe) when a coworker had a depiction of sad pepe (made from those little plastic ring things that people make depictions of pixel art with) at work beside his picture of George Costanza and I thought it was either the "get out" frog from Something Awful or Frog from Chrono Trigger and asked him about it and he said it was a meme originating from a comic strip.

 

I just looked it up and I guess the plastic things are perler beads.

[sclpls]

How responsible is Palmer Luckey for Pepe becoming a white supremacist meme?

[clyde]

How responsible is Palmer Luckey for Pepe becoming a white supremacist meme?

 

For reference:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/22/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-billionaire-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html?via=twitter_page

[Badfinger]

Kermit sipping tea doesn't really have anything to do with pepe like the linked picture suggests.

[clyde]

Kermit sipping tea doesn't really have anything to do with pepe like the linked picture suggests.

 

I thought it was a pretty funny joke that those three popular memes could be interpreted as the "three impure spirits" in Revelations.

I wasn't trying to suggest dat boi is a white-supremacist symbol.

[clyde]

[Problem Machine]

It seems like despite the blase attitude he took in that interview a while back, the creator of Pepe seems to be taking steps to secure his, uh, pepe legacy against white supremacists.

[miffy495]

Yeah, my girlfriend has and loves that book. Was so weird to see Pepe in other contexts.

[clyde]

So I bought Boy's Club from the Humble Bundle and I'm enjoying it.

In other news, Fantagraphics seems to express that this particular form of appropriation is their motive for copyright enforcement.

http://fantagraphics.com/flog/truthaboutpepe/

[clyde]

 

 

Here is a comic Matt Furie drew that references the reappropriation.

[clyde]

Yes, I understand that this is satire, but it's largely the tactic that this satire is dismissing that interests me.

https://medium.com/@Freequincy/right-wing-dove-squad-how-trash-dove-became-the-symbol-of-the-alt-right-c7794b84a48d#.l9duoxivj

 

I think the ability of a concerted effort by a small group to repurpose symbols in what is effectively a smaller internet of social-media giants is worthy of discussion.