Wait is Pepe controversial? I always just interpreted it as an internet meme. One of the many faces of the internet
There was a point where he was heavily embraced by internet nazis, and incels. He kinda became associated with them. The original creator tried to reclaim him and disavow all that, but the damage is done for alot of us.
I consider it to be a popular dogwhistle for those who use hate speech. I don't think it's bigoted to use, but if I see someone using it I think they might be a bigot
I know pepe didn't start out that way, and I know the original creator has tried to reclaim him. But for far too long he was linked to internet nazi incel bs, and I can't really get past it.
Not on its own. If someone's using it a lot and giving other hate signals, I'll suspect that they know what they're doing.
not necessarily anymore, but it's still popular mostly among nazis and chuds and its still a staple of 4chan culture.
its true that there was some movement to "take it back", and it worked somewhat, but in practice i always double take when people use it because the aforementioned association is still going strong.
No but I think it's ugly as hell and I think that is a plenty good reason to want it to go away forever.
I consider Pepe to be a picture. How the hell is it speech in any way?
I'm going to assume this question was asked in good faith. Speech is a synonym for expression. The written word is also not technically speech but is very much included in the term "Free Speech".
Thanks. I can be a literal-minded idiot sometimes.
No. Why would you let the nazis to appropriate anything they want?
Do a reverse uno card and go appropriate some of their shit. Like antifastonetoss. Take everything out of their hands.
By itself? No. The original character was not political, the community that made "feels bad man" famous as a meme wasn't political, and many, many, many of the variants still around split off before it was seen as political. Even in the political sphere, there are plenty of left-wing variants too which I would not consider hate speech. A frogpost without context will make me examine someone closer for other clues, but it's not inherently political or hateful.
I feel like it's one of those things that started on 4chan so yeah probably
No. Some time ago on Lemmy I had to explain the same thing to someone who was trying to make the claim that "glowie" was a racist term because it was used next to the N word in it's first use by Terry A. Davis even though the context showed that "glowie" was being used as a derogatory term for members of the CIA and not people of color.
I had to explain that if someone used the F slur next to the word "rainbow" that does not make "rainbow" derogatory, and if it did, we would have a big problem with many, many more words.
The mistake people make here seems to be related to a composition/division logical fallacy in which they think that just because one thing is associated with another thing in specific context, the context of the second thing must be applied to the entirety of the first thing without exception, when this is not the case at all.
The exact same idea applies to Pepe. Pepe was not made as a hate symbol, but under some contexts has been used as one. This does not mean that Pepe is always a symbol of hate without exception.
No it was just high jacked by the right just like they have currently high jacked soyboy wojack memes.
Context matters. If it's alongside some alt right bigotry, then yes. If it's just a dumb joke about frens and feels, then not at all.
Just how the Christian cross can be a hate sign or a sign of community. In vacuum these are just symbols a collection of shapes and color. Much like these individual pictographic letters combine to make words and sentences. When pepe is used to convey hate, then he is quite literally a hate symbol, but not in any other.
No. Quit letting the far right edgelords do whatever they want with culture.
This ^. Fascists don't deserve shit
No. It's also part of internet culture. I know way too many decent people who use the meme. While it's totally understandable to distance ourselves from a symbol if it becomes too poisoned by the far right, we also shouldn't just allow them to claim things we like. That only gives them power they don't deserve.
No, and the original artist encourages people to pry him back from the bigots. Check out the documentary “Feels Good Man”
It's a great doc. It was on PBS for a while.
WHAT TF DID I MISS??? How is pepe hate speech?? someone pls explain in comments
Alt-right fucks took to using pepe as a neo-nazi symbol. Just par for the course. Take something and then use it enough to pervert its meaning so that when others see it they think Nazi stuff instead of any original meaning. Also see the swastika, don't tread on me, the punisher symbol, and the okay sign to name a few.
what the fuck
I would agree with others in this thread though. It doesn't mean every use is a dog whistle. Fight and take it back. Fascists deserve nothing but to get punched. Pepe can have a better ending.
no, they steal everything.
'free speech' has always been about the freedom of the oppressed to fight upwards against their oppressor with language - but now they stole it & trying to make it mean their freedom to oppress minorities.
same for 'woke' - it used to mean basic human decency, once again they stole it & warped it's meaning by pretending they're the victims and it's preventing their freedom (ie. their freedom to be a bigot).
same for 'political correctness', which was originally a criticism of using fake concern over moral issues for political agenda (sounds familiar), now warped beyond use.
swastika - used for THOUSANDS of years before the fucking nazis came along & stole it. now the cultures it actually belongs to get hate for practicing their ancient beliefs.
pepe and many others are a long list of things they steal and ruin.
why do we keep letting them steal?
they steal everything.
Absolutely. Nazis are consistently creatively bankrupt with few exceptions.
why do we keep letting them steal?
Stealing is easy to do and takes effort to combat. There are things we've stopped them from co-opting, and plenty of contested symbols. But at the end of the day, when the mainstream media picks up a symbol and repeatedly assigns it to a group, it's not so easy to overcome that in broader society.
No
Only the people who use it as such.
No more than I consider Bill Watterson's Calvin to be a redneck icon
Well said
No.
No but I associate him with the alt right imbeciles who appropriated him.
Hate speech is strong, but I do generally treat it as a "I probably don't get along with you" indicator based on personal experiences.
Loooooooool, the fuck?
I was there when it was just used to express mostly sadness and disappointment, and then it became a more malleable thing, used to express other feelings next to your greentext. I don't use the phrase 'media literacy' but this might be one of the few occasions where it actually fits. I don't even understand how one takes "hate speech" from a drawing of an anthropomorphic frog!
And yes, I am, perhaps, an OG. 
Some right wing hate groups have adopted the character as part of their tribal language. For some this was enough to tarnish the character in its entirety via guilt by association. Beyond simply using the common meme format within their communities, however, it has been redrawn many times with aged racist stereotypes (such as overly exaggerated lips or noses)--in a sense there are explicitly bigoted "rare Pepes."
All in all the original meme is not hate speech, and many of its uses and references across diverse communities are not intrinsically hateful, but in hate filled communities it is used extensively and absolutely has racist caricatures associated with it. It's a dog whistle.
I was never part of those groups (or even aware of them, so thanks for the info!) and I won't let them "ruin" what I know for a fact started as a simple meme/visual representation of how one feels. In my case, it's just a nostalgic reminder of my depressed NEET days, when at least I could share a laugh with others in my situation thanks to this silly little frog. Racist dummies will be dummies, I guess. 🤷
Pepe was sort of chosen by the staunchest Trump supporters as their symbol in the wake of his first term. That certainly sparked a controversy, because some folks were only exposed to assholes using Pepe, so they associated you with assholes, if you used Pepe. But other folks liked Pepe as a meme and decided to use it even more, because they did not want it to be appropriated by assholes. So yeah, that's why this question exists.
There's more details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_the_Frog#Use_by_the_alt-right
Welp. Yet another reason to hate American politics and their 'far-right' groups!
People who use it are either using it as a way of displaying that they're bigots, or they don't care about the association with bigots.
There's not really any positive way to use it, so it's a giant red flag whenever I see it.
The only problem with this line of thinking is that it empowers bigots to continue to subvert any character or symbol they choose.
I'd rather see those symbols used more often in ways that fight bigotry than to give in to that manipulation.
That would be great if anyone was actually attemping to reclaim pepe, but in practice, more often than not, the red flags are right.
Peak. Right here is the person who is weak and ruins it for everyone.
No.
No, Pepe is ours
No, and you bitches that let others dictate what you can say can fuck right off 👌.
It's the equivalent of a "beware of the dog" sign: sometimes it's just a puppy, but sometimes it's rabid.
No, but I know a guy who almost got expelled from art school for drawing an image of pepe. So I guess it depends who you ask.
Pepe is how I find frens.
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