Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Dank Memes and the Alternative Right (Essay for Lib & Law)

Recently, a famous meme has been spreading across the span of the internet, the meme of Pepe. The character, who was created by Mike Furie for his comic strip, "Boy's Club," about life in your early twenties, has gotten wide popularity from both teenagers and popular celebrities; albeit, after Hillary Clinton said that Trump supporters were, "a group of dispicables." Trump retailiated with a photoshopped poster from the Expendables movie edited with his face, along with his cabinet and Pepe. Since then, the sad frog, who according to its creator Mike, represents fun, peace and friendship has been used by multiple growing white-supremacist groups spawned under the inspiration of Trump. Pepe's famous slogan has been changed from, "Feels good, man." to, "Kill jews, man."

Anti-discrimination group, ADL has even listed certain forms of rare Pepe as a hate symbol and have an ongoing campaign called, "Save Pepe," meaning they are teaming up with the creator of the meme in order to make Pepe be used as an anti-hate meme, instead. Mike even spoke out against its use, at first thinking it was a phase but then changing his opinion: “It’s completely insane that Pepe has been labeled a symbol of hate, and that racists and anti-Semites are using a once peaceful frog-dude from my comic book as an icon of hate,” Furie said. “It’s a nightmare, and the only thing I can do is see this as an opportunity to speak out against hate." So make them dank memes against hatred, yah big ol' boy.

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