![]() ![]() “A guardian angel gave me Pepe to spread love through the world. Who, during the documentary, appears defeated and anxious as he fights to reclaim his creation. When I speak to Matt Furie over video call, he is remarkably zen for a man who has had to discuss a drawing of a frog for the last 15 years. By 2017, Pepe was dead: killed off by Furie to quash the alarming and at times dangerous political weaponisation of Pepe his creator could never have anticipated. The meme had made its way into murky internet forums frequented by bigots, manipulated into memes that were either racist, sexist or anti-Semitic. His catchphrase was: “Feels good, man.”īy 2010, however, Pepe was not feeling good. Pepe was a symbol of hippie freedom and unity as well as happy-go-lucky fun. Pepe became so ubiquitous he even popped up on the Twitter timelines of pop stars Nicki Minaj (with Pepe dancing in a tight pair of shorts) and Katy Perry (with a meme about jet lag). Pepe then took off as a meme after Furie started posting pictures of him onto MySpace, and by 2008, Pepe was all over popular chat forum 4chan: lovingly and innocuously remixed in different comic situations, moods and guises to suit the humour at hand. It instantly became a stoner classic for the Tumblr generation. With sharp black humour, the comic traces the psychedelic adventures of teenage Pepe and his mischievious roommates Andy, Brett, and Landwolf, who were more interested in taking drugs than taking in school. Pepe was created in 2006 by then 20-year-old San Franciscan cartoonist Matt Furie for his comic book Boy's Club. A new BBC4 documentary, Feels Good Man, aims to shed light on how a sweet little cartoon frog turned into one of the most disturbing symbols on the internet. Tonight, however, you'll see Pepe back in the hands of his original creator. He even played a fairly key part in the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency. While he’s been the face of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, he's also a mascot for neo-Nazis. You might have seen Pepe on gushing tweets promoting world peace and climate change, but you might have seen him fronting racist tirades by the alt-Right and at anti-BLM demonstrations saying that All Lives Matter. One of the most divisive and confused cartoons of the digital age, Pepe's image has been used in every political corner you can think of. It says a lot about internet culture that the most political online symbol of the last 10 years is a small, stoned frog called Pepe. You might not recognise the name, but you’d probably recognise Pepe the Frog’s goofy, half-stoned eyes, his wide, expressive mouth rendered in rudimentary Microsoft Paint style and bright primary colours. ![]()
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