Last week, we talked about the Paul Blart meme in an effort to bring it out of the shadows and to the public where it belongs. This week, Pepe the Frog has the spotlight.
Pepe the Frog was created by artist Matt Furie in his comic “Boy’s Club,” created in 2005, about anthropomorphic animals named Pepe, Andy, Brett, and Landwolf. Eventually, people started cropping out Pepe’s face and his catchphrase “feels good, man” from the comic. Pepe evolved to support emotions like anger and sadness, along with the original happiness.
In an interview with Furie from “Know your meme,” he stated that “[Pepe] just took a life of his own.
Like most memes, Pepe the Frog as a popular meme was born on ‘4chan’.” According to Google, “4chan” is an “English-language image board website. Users generally post anonymously, with the most recent posts appearing above the rest. ‘4chan’ is split into various boards with their own specific content and guidelines.”
The meme gained popularity and erupted from “4chan” to spread like wildfire across the internet, so much so that it was used by some major pop stars like Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites. “4chan” didn’t like this, as they’re used to trashing old memes to make space for new ones when they’ve run their course and gotten too popular. However, Pepe was too widespread to just be trashed. New ones pop up on every website across the internet every day, are spread privately among conversations to show approval and disapproval, and have left a mark on the internet that leaves this meme and its creator immune from disappearing.
Matt Applegate • May 11, 2016 at 3:06 am
Hi,
I’d like to talk to you about reusing your Pepe montage in an article I’m writing. Please contact me by email.