The Creator of Pepe the Frog Talks About The Alt-Right - The Atlantic - 0 views
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It's Not Easy Being Meme
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For most of his lifespan as a meme on the internet, Pepe the Frog was a benign, if sometimes bawdy figure beloved by pop stars and teenagers alike.
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But reporters today are more likely to encounter Pepe’s smug visage in his latest incarnation, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes put it, people with “Nazi frog avatars” who are “tweeting about the Jews.”
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Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a modified image of the poster for the action movie The Expendables with prominent Trump supporters’ faces photoshopped onto those of the action stars. The image, which introduces the group as The Deplorables, includes Pepe in a Donald Trump wig.
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The internet is basically encompassing some kind of mass consciousness, and Pepe, with his face, he’s got these large, expressive eyes with puffy eyelids and big rounded lips, I just think that people reinvent him in all these different ways, it’s kind of a blank slate.
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The interesting thing about this situation, is that I’m talking to you, and it’s like a newsworthy thing that this cute, generally happy frog character has taken on a life of its own for better or worse.