Iconic comic character Pepe the Frog has officially died.
Or at least that's how the artist drew Pepe in his latest strip. It appears Matt Furie, the artist behind the all-too-familiar frog, finally called it quits for a character who has taken the internet by storm: entering viral dialogue chiefly by virtue of user-generated memes.
RIP Pepe The Frog
Over the past two years, Pepe the Frog has been increasingly tied to racist and anti-Semitic views, despite Furie's repeated attempts to iterate that the character is, in fact — positive. In 2016 the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe to the online database of hate symbols, cementing the frog as a vehicle for espousing controversial, offensive views.
Attempts to salvage Pepe's image came — but none proved fruitful. As you can imagine, anything that enters the internet and becomes viral for false reasons is difficult to correct.
Furie on Saturday, May 6, portrayed the white supremacist mascot resting in a coffin as friends mourn his demise. It's of course an installment of Furie's "Boy's Club" comic, where Pepe first appeared in 2005. The strip is part of an anthology Fantagraphics Books published for Free Comic Book Day. In it one friend pours out whiskey for the departed frog, torrenting it down Pepe's dead face.
Furie characterized Pepe as a "chill frog." In 2015, however, it was clear Pepe was losing any amount of chill he had left. Internet denizens began passing his image around like wildfire, and in October of that year, Donald Trump retweeted a photo of Pepe that appeared to be a mesh of himself and the frog.
Pepe The Frog: A Viral Hate Symbol
In June 2016, Furie said that he was proud of Pepe reaching celebrity status. But by then it was clear: the frog had become a mouthpiece, a symbol, and an icon that alt-right extremist groups adapted to announce, promote and foster their own controversial views. It's worth noting that Pepe did not originally have anti-Semitic leanings. Now, it's all it leans toward, in addition to occasional racist sentiments.
Writing an essay for Time, Furie said he was annoyed that his comic had been devolved into a mere symbol of hate, calling the demolition of Pepe's original characteristics "completely insane."
"It's a nightmare, and the only thing I can do is see this as an opportunity to speak out against hate."
The can of worms, so to speak, had been opened last year — and was never closed, despite firm attempts to do so. When the alt-right version of Pepe zoomed unstoppably across the web, Furie wasn't the least bit worried, saying Pepe's political affiliation was "just a phase"; his traditional charm will be restored "as early as next week." No such thing happened, needless to say. To kill him was the necessary, if painful final recourse.
His death doesn't necessarily guarantee that generation of Pepe-themed memes will halt. In fact, it might prove quite the opposite. On the internet, there's a phenomenon called the Streisand Effect, where attempts to hide, remove, and conceal things from the internet renders an opposite result. It's named after Barbra Streisand, whose attempts to suppress photographs of her Malibu house drew added public attention to it.
Pepe the Frog in a casket is probably not the last we'll see of him. But by killing him, at least Furie can recuperate from the maelstrom caused by his creation.
