Overview

The Nazi Pepe Controversy refers to claims spread by the Hillary Clinton campaign and several news organizations in the summer of 2016 that Pepe the Frog is a white supremacist symbol.

Background

The long-running Pepe the Frog meme reached a height of popularity in late 2015 when it was used on Twitter by presidential candidate Donald Trump in October and popular singers Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj in November and December.

Developments

2016 U.S. Election Campaign

Association with Donald Trump

On July 22, 2015, Malaysian artist Maldraw posted an image on /pol/ of Smug Pepe as Donald Trump overlooking a fence at the U.S.-Mexican border holding back sad Mexicans drawn as the Feels Guy. ^[27][28]

As the association of Trump and Pepe gained popularity, Donald Trump retweeted a Trump Pepe image on October 13, 2015.

Association with neo-Nazis

On May 26th, 2016, The Daily Beast published Olivia Nuzzi's article “How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol“^[1] based on interviews with Twitter users @JaredTSwift^[2] and @PaulTown_, each identified as an “anonymous white nationalist." The two pranksters claimed to have organized a group of /r9k/ users to create offensive versions of Pepe, including versions associating Pepe with Nazi symbology, and send them to journalists as a “campaign to reclaim Pepe from normies.” In the article, Nuzzi declared that "Pepe became socially unacceptable" and associated /r9k/ with "Elliot Rodger--the UC Santa Barbara shooter who killed six people in 2014--who found fans there, and GamerGate."

Use by Trump supporters

On August 25th, 2016, Hillary Clinton gave a speech denouncing the alt-right. During Clinton’s address, a /pol/ user posted a thread revealing that he was a member of the audience at the event, to which another user suggested to the OP that they yell “Pepe” as to interrupt her speech.^[3] In the YouTube livestream, a man off the screen can be heard yelling “Pepe!” at approximately 56 minutes in.^[4]

On September 9th, 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said that half of Donald Trump’s supporters were in a “basket of deplorables." On September 10th, Donald Trump Jr. posted a photoshopped movie poster on Instagram^[5] of the 2010 action film The Expendables, which features various prominent conservatives and Pepe the Frog with the title “The Deplorables."

Clinton campaign response

On September 11th 2016, NBC News^[6] published an article about the Deplorables photoshop which referred to Pepe the Frog as a “popular white nationalist symbol” based on a statement made by Southern Poverty Law Center’s Heidi Beirich. That same day, several news sites including The Hill,^[7] Vanity Fair,^[8] The Atlantic,^[51] The Independent,^[52] The Guardian,^[52] Talking Points Memo^[9] and CNN ^[10] published reports describing Pepe as a “white supremacist meme” and “white nationalist symbol.”

On September 12th, the official Hillary Clinton presidential campaign blog^[11] published a post titled “Donald Trump, Pepe the frog, and white supremacists: an explainer,” which labeled Pepe the Frog as “sinister” and a “symbol associated with white supremacy.”

Online Reaction

Over the next 24 hours, posts about the news coverage and the Clinton campaign’s reaction reached the front page of various subreddits, including /r/cringe,^[17] /r/politics,^[12][13] /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[14] /r/KotakuInAction,^[18] /r/4chan,^[15] and /r/The_Donald^[16] where many Redditors mocked the Clinton campaign and the mainstream media for failing to understand the Pepe meme.

News Media Coverage

On September 13th, The Daily Dot^[19] published an article titled “Pepe the Frog is not a Nazi, no matter what the alt-right says,” stating that “Pepe lacks political affiliation.” On September 14th, the Daily Caller published an interview with @PaulTown_ and @JaredTSwift in which the two Twitter pranksters admitted fabricating the basis of the Daily Beast report.^[20] That same day, in an article titled "No Hillary, Pepe the Frog is Not a Racist Meme",^[21] Ian Miles Cheong of Heat Street wrote that "no single group or ideology has ownership of the meme."

On September 17th, the Economist^[22] published the article "Pepe and the stormtroopers: How Donald Trump ushered a hateful fringe movement into the mainstream" which described Pepe the Frog as "a cartoon-strip creature co-opted into offensive scenarios" and gave the "Deplorables" poster as an example of such an offensive scenario. Emails leaked by Wikileaks showed that Economist publisher Lynn Rothschild had advised the Clinton campaign in 2015.^[45][46]

On September 19th, Heat Street founder Louise Mensch wrote "Hillary Clinton Is Absolutely Right, ‘Pepe’ Meme Is Antisemitic – An Apology."^[21] Heat Street retracted Cheong's article in full and added a note stating "This article was wrong and we should never have published it."^[24] Cheong said on Twitter that "I was wrong about Pepe. It has, in fact, become an anti-semitic meme."^[34] An email leaked by Wikileaks showed that Louise Mensch had volunteered for the Clinton campaign in February.^[35]

By September 26th, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had added Pepe the Frog to its list of hate symbols.^[25] The ADL noted that "The majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted" and warned that "it is important to examine use of the meme only in context."

On September 30, Corriere della Sera showed Trump Pepe alongside several Nazi Pepes with the headline "Trump e la rana simbolo d'odio" ("Trump and the frog symbol of hate").

Before the end of the month, reports on social media claimed that students in high school and college were being taught that Pepe was a hate symbol.

Creator's Response

In an interview^[26] from Esquire with the character's creator Matt Furie, he stated that he "had never heard of the alt-right or any of that stuff--even white nationalism" and that "I'm learning about that stuff with you, about what the hell is going on." He would later go on to say how coverage on those who make these memes are "giving this fringe group more attention. They're just these scattered nihilistic guys, I don't even know what their intention is." In another excerpt of the interview where he is asked about his thoughts on the group who has co-opted his creation, he states:

Obviously it's not in line with any of my beliefs. I've seen outrageous stuff involving Pepe online before, but I try not to dwell on it. I blame Trump for all of this, because he kind of looks like this smug Pepe meme. Now it's just this runaway train. But the people who are driving this train are these anonymous Internet trolls who don't stand for anything except for nihilism and getting a rise out of whatever racist or sexist or disgusting thing they can do. It's just an idiotic joke. They kind of seem like this group that tried to intellectualize white power, and they've appropriated Pepe for that. It sucks, but I can't control it more than anyone can control frogs on the Internet.

On October 7th, 2016, Fantagraphics, the publisher of Matt Furie’s comic book collection Boy’s Club, issued a statement^[29] on behalf of Matt Furie in which they refuted Pepe’s association with the alt-right, while criticizing Donald Trump and his alt-right supporters for “myriad copyright violations” of the artist’s character.

Fantagraphics Books wants to state for the record that the one, true Pepe the frog, as created by the human being and artist Matt Furie, is a peaceful cartoon amphibian who represents love, acceptance, and fun. (And getting stoned.) Both creator and creation reject the nihilism fueling Pepe’s alt-right appropriators, and all of us at Fantagraphics encourage you to help us reclaim Pepe as a symbol of positivity and togetherness.^[39]

Nerds For Her

On October 1, Hillary for America and Don't Forget To Be Awesome (dftba) launched Nerds For Her, a memetic campaign associating the Hillary Clinton campaign with the logos of Pokemon, Star Wars, the Alexander Hamilton musical, Nintendo games, Marvel comic book characters, and the television shows Dr. Who, Game of Thrones, Steven Universe and Supernatual.^[36]

#SavePepe campaign

On October 14th, the Anti-Defamation League^[30] announced that it would join forces with Matt Furie on the #SavePepe hashtag campaign in an effort to reclaim Pepe the Frog from racists by creating and sharing positive images of the frog.

The Independent described the effort as a "campaign to free [the] meme from Donald Trump supporters".^[31]

On October 17th, The Nib^[32], the political cartoon site that previously commissioned K.C. Green’s response to the Republican National Committee’s use of his “This Is Fine” webcomic, released an original drawing by Matt Furie that shows Pepe the Frog melting into a likeness of Donald Trump.

That same day, TIME Magazine published an op-ed article by Furie in which he further rebuked the alt-right’s use of his art.^[33]

“As the creator of Pepe, I condemn the illegal and repulsive appropriations of the character by racist and fringe groups. The true nature of Pepe, as featured in my comic book, ‘Boys Club,’ celebrates peace, togetherness and fun. I aim to reclaim the rascally frog from the forces of hate and ask that you join me in making millions of new, joyful Pepe memes that share the light hearted spirit of the original chilled-out champion.”

Further developments

On October 11, a group of researchers published a report^[37] on the effect of /pol/'s Operation Google. The report contains an appendix of "rare pepes" including a Nazi Pepe and depictions of Pepe as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Julian Assange carrying a USB drive of DNCleaks.

On October 19, the ADL published a report^[38] on racist harassment of Jewish journalists which found that "Trump" was one of the words most commonly used by antisemites. The report included a Nazi Pepe as one of the most common memes used to harass Jewish journalists.

On November 7, the day before the U.S. Presidential election, the BBC issued a report on "Trump and the rise of the alt-right" ^[39] which defines 4chan and 8chan as "alt-right message boards", devotes several paragraphs to Pepe the Frog, and quotes Joanna Mendelson of the ADL discussing the "white privilege" of the alt-right. The report is accompanied by a video report showing posts on /pol/ alongside a second television screen showing an image of Trump Pepe.

Rain of Frogs

On November 6th, @bakedalaska^[40] tweeted "EMERGENCY BROADCAST In the final hour of this election I am calling on all MAGA supporters to flood the web with Rare Pepes! #RainOfFrogs" with a picture of a bejeweled Pepe. Over the coming two days, dozens of people posted Pepes under the hashtag "#RainofFrogs."

In reporting on Rain of Frogs, The Daily Dot^[41] called Pepe the Frog a "a racist cartoon" and called its users "trolls." The Jewish Daily Forward presented two Rain of Frogs images, a photoshopped scene from the movie Saving Private Ryan of Allied soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy and a Trump Pepe holding a shotgun while standing next to an American flag, as examples of "racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted themes."^[42]

On November 8, the Anti-Defamation League retweeted the Daily Forward article with an image of Pepe as Paul Revere, giving this as an example of an "Anti-Semitic Pepe the Frog."^[43] The first response by Anthony Lopez drew attention to Lady Gaga wearing a Nazi-style uniform at a Hillary Clinton campaign rally. ^[44] Twitter hid Anthony Lopez's response from the thread on November 9 between 15:30-17:00 UTC and restored it the next day.

Pepe is Dead

On May 6th, 2017, World's Greatest Cartoonists published a comic by Matt Furie in which Pepe is shown laying in a casket at his funeral. That day, several news sites reported that Furie had “killed” the character by publishing the comic. Pepe's fans on social media responded by drawing the frog as Jesus risen from the dead.

Apple bans Pepe

On June 7th, 2017, Apple banned the game Pepe Scream on the grounds that "Your app contains images and references of Pepe the Frog, which are considered objectionable content".^[47] Apple had previously banned the game Hide It Hillary for making fun of Hillary Clinton,^[48] banned American Civil War games for containing the Confederate flag,^[49] and excluded Twitter competitor Gab.ai from its app store by making demands that would have Gab violate its own content policy.^[50]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References