Rare Pepes: Meme culture & the rise of neofascism / Araí Yegros C.

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What ends in bloodshed, begins as a mere game. 




    As Bratich very eloquently explains in Occupy all the dispositifs: Memes, media ecologies and emergent bodies politic, to understand the cultural and political valence it is crucial to understand its origins.(Bratich, 2014) I took the freedom to analyze probably the most prostituted meme of all: Pepe the Frog. While it has become an icon of both internet humor and meme culture, Pepe is the work of artist Matt Fury featuring in the digital comic book Boy’s Club, a lighthearted story about stoner friends who live together. After appearing on Fury’s Myspace in 2009, many users began replicating Pepe’s trademark phrase “feels good man” into new so called “rare pepes” images created by Fury’s fanbase. However, the character’s personality did not take long to shift into a more mischievous and obscure one, as 4chan appropriated the character, creating the Pepe Blockchain, a cryptocurrency used to buy rare Pepes, or rare images of Pepe in different circumstances. 

    After Pepe reached his peak popularity in late 2014, the 2016 US presidential campaign proved essential for Pepe’s revival as alt righters in 4chan forums reclaimed Pepe as their creation. Many forums exist labeling the frog as a neo nazi symbol, mainly after Chris Harper killed eight people in his community college in Oregon, US, a day after posting a Pepe meme with a pistol on 4chan. In an imprudent and preposterous manner, the frog has been retweeted by president Trump. In 2016, Pepe was declared a hate symbol by the Anti Defamation League. 

    Pepe the Frog represents Bratich’s theory on aesthetics as it would have never gained so much notoriety and even an ironic religion (The Cult of Kek) on 4chan if there were not third parties involved (Virno making the difference between actor and spectator) buying, selling and creating rare Pepes, and ultimately making him a white supremacist symbol, which could be an emergent body politic as the violent cacophony of the multitude turns into actual tangible white supremacist rallies and political zealots referencing Pepe at a Hillary Clinton rally. Not only is Pepe a decisive memetic agent for internet and political culture as it transferable, easily spreadable and adapted (originally Pepe memes were present in tumblr, Reddit, Myspace, Twitter before 4chan claimed authority over them) but its audience give the frog his validity-even charging money for rare images of Pepe. (a collection of said items sold for over 100,000 US dollars in 2014) Unfortunately, passive spectators can soon enough become into militants for hateful causes and toxic moral absolutism.  


Sources:

1.Bratich, J. (2014) Occupy All the Dispositifs: Memes, Media Ecologies, and Emergent Bodies Politic. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Vol. 11.


2. Parker, I. (2019). Memesis and Psychoanalysis: Mediatizing Donald Trump. In Bown A. & Bristow D. (Eds.), Post Memes: Seizing the Memes of Production (pp. 353-366). Punctum Books. doi:10.2307/j.ctv11hptdx.18


3.  Cafolla, A. (19th September 2017) Pepe the Frog creator takes legal action against alt-right. Dazed Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/37463/1/pepe-the-frog-creator-takes-legal-action-against-alt-right

Comments

  1. RosanaOctober 14, 2020 at 7:47 PM

    I didn't know Pepe the frog had been used by Trump Araí, wow. Pepe the Frog is possibly one of the most fascinating examples of how meme culture works. Just as you show here, memes have become the center of an iconoclastic war between parties, and polarized, political factions. i find fascinating how, sometimes, sizing a meme, and appropriating its meaning but keeping its semiotic nucleus, can be more harming and damaging than actually creating a new meme. Re-signification of imagery has always been an essential part of war...

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