About

Pepe Getting Eyes Gouged Out refers to a series of exploitable memes based on a drawing of Pepe the Frog getting his eyes gouged out by a man, who has his thumbs inserted into Pepe's eye sockets.

The meme was first posted online as early as April 15th, 2020, to the /r/pepethefrog subreddit, and shows a North FC football (soccer) player gouging out Pepe's eyes. The meme inspired several edits showing players from other teams gouging out his eyes.

Between 2023 and 2026, the panel of Pepe getting his eyes gouged out, removing the context of football, became increasingly popularized online as a reaction image and image caption format, often used to comment on content that the poster would rather not have seen.

Origin

On April 15th, 2020, Redditor Cowener posted a meme to the /r/PepetheFrog^[1] subreddit that shows a North FC player, his shirt reading "Norf FC," gouging out Pepe the Frog's eyes, garnering just 16 upvotes in six years. This is the earliest known public posting of the meme online, though it did not receive significant engagement.

Spread

The meme of Pepe the Frog getting his eyes gouged spread over the following years, first inspiring edits that replace the football player and later editing Pepe himself.

For example, on December 10th, 2022, Redditor Navillus__ posted an edit of the meme to the /r/okmatewanker^[2] subreddit, titled, "Time to take on the frogs," using Pepe to represent French footballers, garnering over 2,600 upvotes in four years.

Between 2023 and 2025, the isolated panel of Pepe getting his eyes gouged out started to see use as a reaction image on sites including 4chan^[3] and Reddit^[4][5] as a way of reacting to content that the poster would rather not have seen.

On March 16th, 2025, X^[6] / Twitter user @uncledoomer posted the meme under the caption, "when the menu at the restaurant is a QR code," gaining over 32,000 likes and 1,600 reposts in a year.

On May 15th, 2026, Instagram^[7] user lider.exe shared a meme of a scout trooper from Star Wars gouging out Baby Yoda's eyes, gaining about 300 likes in a month.

On May 20th, X^[8] user @JadeAtrophis reposted it in response to a clip of Baby Yoda getting punched by a scout trooper in The Mandalorian, gaining over 14,000 likes in about a month.

On May 28th, 2026, X^[9] user @wwarrior_1 posted a version of the meme showing Nikki frowning from the movie Obsession gouging out Pepe's eyes in a post about how Obsession surpassed The Mandalorian and Grogu at the box office, garnering over 1,300 likes in three weeks.

On May 29th, X^[10] user @Yakumo_Iris posted the image of Pepe getting his eyes gouged in response to a racist Pepe meme, writing, "God I hate this fucking frog," gaining over 89,000 likes in three weeks.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

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External References