August 19, 2019

"To me, Pepe is just a Hello Kitty-like character."

Said one of the Hong Kong protesters, quoted in "Hong Kong Protesters Love Pepe the Frog. No, They’re Not Alt-Right/To much of the world, the cartoon frog is a hate symbol. To Hong Kong protesters, he’s something entirely different: one of them" (NYT).
“It has nothing to do with the far-right ideology in the state,” [another] person wrote on LIHKG, an anonymous forum that has been the center of discussion for protesters. “It just looks funny and captures the hearts of so many youngsters. It is a symbol of youth participation in this movement.”...

Emily Yueng, 20, said... "different countries have very different cultures.... Symbols and colors that mean something in one culture can mean something completely different in another culture, so I think if Americans are really offended by this, we should explain to them what it means to us.”...

Pepe was not always seen as a racist symbol. He was created more than a decade ago by Matt Furie, who killed off the character in 2017 after it was adopted by the alt-right.... “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,” he said in 2016, when the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe to its list of hate symbols.

80 comments:

Michael K said...

Far Right = not left.

rcocean said...

When did we elect the "anti-defamation" league to anything? They along with the SPLC seem to be America's Un-elected Censorship board.

rcocean said...

Pepe the frog is a cartoon frog. That the ADL thinks differently doesn't make it so. And 'most of the world' doesn't give a rats ass.

Lucid-Ideas said...

KEK is a meme of peace.

Anthony said...

Well, my first thought was, Who can dislike a singing frog?

J. Farmer said...

Pepe is yet another example of the master trolling from the 4 Chan set.

mccullough said...

So the ADL and SPLC will have to label he Hong Kong protesters haters.

The OK symbol. A cartoon frog.

These folks are easily triggered

Lucid-Ideas said...

I'll never forget when Hillary Clinton - among the most if not the most powerful woman on earth - called out pepe the cartoon frog, and then lost the general.

Pepe is more powerful than HRC and can't be 'suicided'. That's why.

mccullough said...

So his creator committed frogacide on Pepe.

J. Farmer said...

Other examples include milk, the okay sign, and the phrase, “it’s okay to be white.” More confirmation that the movement that calls itself anti-racist is primarily just anti-white. And it’s mostly pushed by masochistic whites.

mccullough said...

Next, Hello Kitty will need to be killed off

rcocean said...

NYT Reporter: I've gotten the greatest story EVER. Its about a cartoon frog.
Editor: What? Don't you have REAL story?
NYT Reporter: I can tie it into antisemitism and racism.
Editor: Great! That's front page stuff.

mccullough said...

Trump gives the Thumbs Up sign often.

Another White Supremacy symbol. Time to kill off The Fonz

Aggie said...

So in other words, Hong Kong protesters see the Pepe character the exact same way that most Trump supporters see it. But the assumption is, to 'Americans' it's a symbol of hate. Got it. Remind me who won, again?

JackWayne said...

“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,”

Yeah, Progressives have really screwed up. Their hatred and racism is on full display.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Is there any creature on earth more sensitive to environmental change than the humble anura?

I think the frog meme is an apt meme. Pepe is sensitive to changes in the environment that are harmful to him. Pepe symbolizes the resistance to that harm.

Don't harm Pepe lest a plague of frogs ensue.

derek said...

Oh No! The frog! AHHHHHHH!

mccullough said...

Peace Frog is the best Doors song. Maybe a fitting anthem for Hong Kong

J. Farmer said...

A frog walks into a bank...

Lucid-Ideas said...

A frog can eat roughly half its body weight in insects every month, and all amphibians are responsible for almost 1/10th of all insects consumed globally.

Perfect creature to drain the swamp...

Amadeus 48 said...

I'm with J Farmer with this. The "PePe the Alt-Right mascot" meme came straight from 4Chan as a send-up of the lefty/antifa propensity to see white supremacists under their beds. It worked!

Was Pepe adopted by the alt-right? Well, yeah, after idiots on the left did all the hard work, having been tricked by 4Chan.

Thanks, lefties. You are idiots.

chuck said...

Matt Furie, who sounds like a bigot, thinks that “It’s completely insane that Pepe has been labeled a symbol of hate... ". Heh.

chuck said...

> having been tricked by 4Chan.

It's 4Chan's world, we just live in it.

Ken B said...

A list of hate symbols? The very idea is stupid. So, you get to tell me what a symbol means to me?

If a symbol really did stand for hatred, and you can certainly make a case for some such as the Nazi swastika, then you don’t need a list to tell.

BUMBLE BEE said...

With the anniversary of so many 60s events in addition to TDS, I have to wonder if the brain damage that the medical establishment predicted from the use of psychoactive substances is becoming evident. Pepe is a cartoon character representing white supremacy????? Those medular crystals gotta be busting loose on these chuckleheads!

Spiros said...

They're not "Alt Right"? But the HK protesters don't want to share an open border with poor, backwards China. And they don't want to share their wealth with Chinese peasants. Good luck!!

Matt Sablan said...

By "much of the world" do they mean "our in-group?"

rcocean said...

Pepe was a hate-frog
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
And he always had some mighty fine wine

rcocean said...

Miss Piggy was full of hate.
But she loved Jews.
For obvious reasons.

rcocean said...

A Toad is a high class Frog.

Michael K said...

A frog can eat roughly half its body weight in insects every month,

Bats eat thousands of tons of mosquitoes every month and windmills kill 50,000 bats each year. Soon mosquitoes will take over.

Natural world. Malaria rules. Rachel Carson tried but her heirs have it figured out.

Balfegor said...

racists and anti-Semites are using a once peaceful frog-dude from my comic book as an icon of hate

The simplest explanation here is the correct one: they're not racists and anti-Semites. Oh, I mean I'm sure there's a few anti-Semites in there, and a few racists. But that's not really a defining characteristic of the group in any meaningful way. Their opponents have struggled mightily to tar them with that association, but I haven't found those efforts persuasive. I mean, it's been quarantined and hidden from google searches, but I still occasionally browse r/The_Donald, so I've seen how they interact myself. While it has a little more of an edge than back in 2016 when they were constantly frothy, silly, joyful and -- I thought incorrectly -- amusingly delusional about their god emperor Trump's chances, they're still not notably racist or anti-Semitic. Rather, the things that outsiders claim are "racist" are usually just the kinds of neutral statements (like "it's okay to be white") that are considered "racist" under the most au courant "woke" doublethink.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Editor: What? Don't you have REAL story?"

I KNEW the Russians were involved in this, somehow.

jk said...

Nothing has so perfectly captured how out of touch the media-left is with the young... than their insistence that a meme character is an "alt-right symbol".

It completely betrays that they have not a single clue how internet culture actually works.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

cant some frogs switch gender?

what will they say when Pepe transitions?

rcocean said...

Here's the most hateful frog of all time. I present:

Phyllobates terribilis - The Golden Poison Frog. Touch him and you die. He contains so much poison, one dose could kill 10-12 people. However, in captivity, he's a harmless Jolly fellow - if not fed his native diet.

buwaya said...

Fascist symbols -

Fascist Lincoln

Unknown said...

God Forbid they start wearing Betsy Ross Nikes.

Will the lefties support HK?

Well, HK loves American which needs be destroyed since the Sin of 1619, while the Chinese would love to tank America and take its place. And HK is Asian, which is less likely to vote Dem than Africans and latin peasants.

OTOH Chinese are climate change creators, so the world will be destroyed in 10 years, but at least America. But the Chinese have central Socialist control, if the libs could take over as the true elite they could use the Chinese mechanism to run the utopia.

I have to say progressives will not back Hong Kong.

buwaya said...

My swastika -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauburu

rcocean said...

Americans aren't very smart when it comes to Nazi. For example, people on Youtube keep thinking the song that has this lyrics is NAZI:

On the heath, there blooms a little flower
and it's called Erika.
Eagerly a hundred thousand little bees,
swarm around Erika.
For her heart is full of sweetness,
a tender scent escapes her blossom-gown.
On the heath, there blooms a little flower
and it's called Erika.

They keep posting "Sieg Hiel' in the comments and getting the song banned. Dumbkopfs!

Fen said...

The Nike Logo is a Super Secret Symbol of White Supremacy.

If you wear Nike products, you are giving a platform to Nazis.

Destroy all your Nike gear and attack anyone wearing Nike.

Fen said...

Please welcome our newest member to Althouse White Liberation Front

As a new pledge, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is thrilled to be serving cookies for our monthly White Supremacist meetings at the Beth Emeth Synagogue in Rockville Maryland.

And on that note: new pledges are NOT required to give VIP members lap dances (uncool, guys)

Fen said...

@ Farmer

I believe you pulled duty for mentoring New Joins.

Enjoy.

JaimeRoberto said...

"It’s completely insane that Pepe has been labeled a symbol of hate."

You can say that again.

Susan said...

One man's hate symbol is another man's symbol of freedom.

If it can happen to the Betsy Ross flag can the bald eagle be far behind?

n.n said...

Rabid diversity and a supremacy complex. They have well and truly jumped the ass. #HateLovsAbortion

n.n said...

As a new pledge, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is thrilled to be serving cookies for our monthly White Supremacist meetings

She did put American and alien lives at risk for the sake of political progress, her progress.

The Nike Logo is a Super Secret Symbol of White Supremacy.

Undoubtedly. Indubitably. Unambiguously. When human rights activists stand against persistent wicked soltuions, redistributive change, involuntary exploitation, and diversity, Nike endorsed kneeling, and, presumably, bowing down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve...

n.n said...

The frog is boiled so that the chameleon may progress.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Somehow, I think that if Mussolini and Hitler had adopted a cartoon frog as the symbol of their movements back in the 20's, Fascism and Nazism wouldn't have gained any traction.

buwaya said...

Two German songs sometimes mistaken for Nazi things -

Florian Geyer

It is populist, anti-aristocratic and anti-clerical.
This peasant-revolt trope was actually used by both the Nazis and the Communists, as was the symbolic populist hero Florian Geyer. Both sides used what material came to hand, and sometimes both fixed on the same thing. To be fair though, the communists used him first.

There was even a Florian Geyer SS Cavalry Division.

For this there is less excuse -
Gedanken Sind Frei

A liberal student-song, it was thought of as rather left-wing. Think the 1848 revolutions.
Heck, there is even a Pete Seeger cover.
But it is provoking in some academic circles in the US, partly because it is German, which is Nazi - tinged these days.
And there is the question of what exactly is that thought that is free.
It should not be a surprise that it has latterly been used by neo-Nazis. Their thoughts are free too.

Martin said...

The only places where Pepe is a symbol of racism are in the American left cultural complex.

Everywhere else, aka "the real world, where real people live" it is just a cartoon frog.

narciso said...

where Zoolander has held sway:

https://omny.fm/shows/the-john-oakley-show/jonathan-kay-talks-ethics-commissioners-report-on

Johnathan Birks said...

FeelsGoodMan

wild chicken said...

Pepe is the young man's kneejerk rejection of political correctness and all its pomps.

God love 'em.

Roughcoat said...

I'll see your "Erika" and raise you Preußens Gloria, as performed by the goose-stepping Chilean Army.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6o4nJyHNso

Also NOT a Nazi song!

Roughcoat said...

Even better rendition of Prussian Glory at Bellevue Palace in Berlin, May 27, 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUP8hXa-Rg

Scary, I admit, but that's because they're Germans. NOT a Nazi song!

Fernandinande said...

Here's the ADL Pepe, complete with mustache and slogan.
Here's the ADL Pepe, complete with mustache and slogan.

Fernandinande said...

Mostly harmless:

Just FYI, you can generally omit the end of a URL after a ? or ".htm[l]". (But test it first! It obviously doesn't work for youtube URLs)

This is the same link that you posted, just without the Fecabook tracking:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274421/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-warns-violence-daniel-greenfield

narciso said...

Sorry an old link:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274671/joe-biden-generates-less-grass-roots-enthusiasm-daniel-greenfield

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...


The Pepe symbol has never had anything to do with the Dreaded Monster counter revolutionaries that Marxists are pretending that they are fighting and call the made up name of "Alt-Right." Pepe is a badge of group strength among thousands of internet freedom loving anarchists that are only guilty of being truth tellers that exposes everybody.

traditionalguy said...

On the other hand, "Fear the Frog" is a serious warning in the Big 12.

Biff said...

Every time I think we're approaching peak stupid, something like this comes along.

wendybar said...

Jeremiah was a bullfrog...
Was a good friend of mine!

Mary Beth said...

The only people who think Pepe symbolizes white supremacists is Hillary and her media minions.

Maybe Pepe is just anti-communist. That would explain why the Right and the Hong Kong protesters like him and the Left hates him.

Maillard Reactionary said...

There is but one Hello Kitty. Thou shalt not put false Kitties, or Frogs, before her.

You have been warned.

wild chicken said...

Tradguy said if better than I. Pepe is not just a meaningless cartoon. It is disingenuous to assert otherwise.

Funny to see HK dissidents adopt him.

Michael said...

To much of the world , almost all of the world, Pepe the frog is unknown.

J. Farmer said...

@ Farmer

I believe you pulled duty for mentoring New Joins.

Enjoy.


I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I think it's a compliment and will take it as such. Thanks! ;)

J. Farmer said...

@Biff:

Every time I think we're approaching peak stupid, something like this comes along.

Oh no no. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Wait until we have the demographic profile of Latin America. You haven't seen anything yet.

traditionalguy said...

Pepe originated on 4Chan and 8Chan and has morphed over the years into the Qanon body of work followers. That is why the whole internet world is following it as Trump's MI Operation and Hong Kong raises it as their standard. They totally believe Trump is winning the war.

JamesB.BKK said...

Sayeth Matt Furie, Pepe's supposed creator: “It’s completely insane that Pepe has been labeled a symbol of hate, ..." before going on to blame some accused amorphous groupings that were identified to him by those doing the insane labeling (who do so for million$ in annual revenue and "study" trips galore, among other salaries and perquisites, and to launder defamation). He's not very good at identifying agency, is he?

JamesB.BKK said...

Maybe Pepe is just anti-communist. That would explain why the Right and the Hong Kong protesters like him and the Left hates him.

Pepe reportedly is not a fan of communists, or the others of the same ilk that pretend not to be.

tim in vermont said...

Maybe Pepe is not a “hate symbol” for anybody but people on the left? He represents people who value individual liberty, anathema to those who would enslave us like so many Cubans to ensure our happiness. Every control freak thinks they are doing it for the good of the people around them.

Kevin said...

Oh no! Now Nazis will just pretend to be for Chinese human rights!

What’s a Leftie to do if the deplorables can’t be easily identified and scorned on a mass scale?

At some point they’re just going to have to wear something on their clothing to easily identify them.

Roger Sweeny said...

I'm waiting for some anti-gay group in Tanzania or Chad to adopt ROYGBV as their symbol.

Freder Frederson said...

Bats eat thousands of tons of mosquitoes every month and windmills kill 50,000 bats each year. Soon mosquitoes will take over.

I don't know where you get this statistic (most likely, like most of your "facts", from the monkeys flying out of your butt), but even if true, that would not be a problematic amount (especially compared to the bats killed by other methods of power generation). You should have upped it by at least a factor of 100 to really make a point.

White nose syndrome is the current bat population, and it has killed millions of bats.

Natural world. Malaria rules. Rachel Carson tried but her heirs have it figured out.

DDT was nearing the end of its useful life as a pesticide. If we had continued using it past 1972 (and contrary to the bullshit you like to spew, it was only banned for agricultural use), the main benefit would have been we wouldn't have to worry about pesky bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and brown pelicans.

Known Unknown said...

"Peace Frog is the best Doors song"

I kind of hate The Doors but Peace Frog is awesome.

Balfegor said...

Re: Kevin:

Oh no! Now Nazis will just pretend to be for Chinese human rights!

Yes, how very ironic.

MacMacConnell said...

Haven't been a Doors fan since I was in junior high, but the movie was great, we got to see Kathleen Quinlan's new titties.