Pepe's Unfortunate Legacy

In 2005, writer and illustrator Matt Furie created four animal hybrid characters and set them off on slightly-gross but humorous adventures that many young adults can related to. The comic, titled, "Boy's Club," was innocent enough. Over the next few years, as memes began to take off in popularity, Pepe's sad, stressed, and chill facial expressions found their way into the meme circulation. "Feels good man" was his motto.

As the meme gained popularity in social media, people from all circles began to make it their own. This is considered by many to be the beauty of meme culture; a singular picture, featuring a facial expression or a moment from a popular book, show, or movie, is taken and ironically applied to a multitude of texts and contexts. Acts that would be considered unethical with other visual art forms, such as circulation and manipulation of an image without citing the original source, is the norm in meme culture. The dynamic aspect of memes makes them vulnerable to malicious influences, though, which is what happened to Pepe in the last few years with the rise of the hate group known as the "alt-right." The alt-right began to use the Pepe meme to mobilize their own hate messages, turning him into deplorable characters of history and adding racial slurs to his speech bubbles.

Due to the fluid nature of memes, no form of legal action could be taken against these hate groups, and Matt Furie was left to watch Pepe's legacy turn from harmless and fun, to a hate symbol registered in the Anti-Defamation League.

Despite efforts to smother Pepe's popularity, deter hateful meme creation, and even kill the character off, no efforts have been able to curb the alt-right's use of the meme (or the President's use, as of October 2015). Unfortunately, there is no end in sight to hateful Pepe. For now, we can hold meme creators and circulators accountable for their actions, and drown out hateful messages with more positive ones.