Pepe The Frog Quotes

Social Media During the Trump presidency, the internet has itself become a purveyor of claimed reality. Any group—indeed, any individual person—can make use of the internet to disseminate the most bizarre version of ultimate reality, and can do so anonymously. I have mentioned QAnon as a largely social media–created apocalyptic conspiracy theory. Another internet product is the “Cult of Kek,” the alt-right’s semi-ironic religion, which claims the reappearance of Kek, the mythological Egyptian God of Chaos and Darkness, sometimes taking the form of Pepe the Frog. In this narrative, Donald Trump has become the embodiment of this Kek/Pepe chaos, the prophet of the world-destruction sought by the alt-right.

The concept of the deep vernacular web can be understood as a heuristic intended to historicize these online antagonistic communities as antecedent to social media and even to the web itself. The deep vernacular web is characterized by anonymous or pseudonymous subcultures that largely see themselves as standing in opposition to the dominant culture of the surface web. Identified to an extent with the anonymous 4chan image board—which hosts one million posts per day, three quarters of which are made by visitors from English-speaking countries—these subcultures tend to imagine themselves as a faceless mass. In direct contrast to the individualized culture of the selfies associated with social media, we might thus characterize the deep vernacular web as a mask culture in which individual identity is effaced by the totemic deployment of memes. Insofar as this mask culture constructs an image of itself as an autochthonous culture whose integrity is under threat, we can perhaps begin to understand how grievances of the deep vernacular web have been capitalized upon by those espousing a far-right ideology. Conversely we can also see how the vernacular innovations of these often bizarre subcultures, such as Pepe the Frog, have themselves been absorbed in the service of far-right populism.

For some inexplicable reason, Trump supporters hanging out in political chatrooms began using a green cartoon frog named Pepe as their symbol, pumping out pro-Trump memes with the image. Many of them were also World of Warcraft fans who have long used the word “kek” in place of “lol” for reasons too obscure and nerdy to go into. Then, oddly enough, they found out that there actually was an Egyptian god named Kek who was depicted as a man with a frog’s head. Some thought it was a mystical coincidence that shouldn’t be ignored, or at least should be made into a delightfully kooky storyline. They decided that Trump was a living version of Kek, hence the nickname “God Emperor.” Mostly for fun, a canon was created around the Cult of Kek. Adherents claim heritage to an ancient kingdom called “Kekistan” that was overtaken by “Cuckistan” and “Normistan.” They created their own flag, inspired by the German Nazi war flag, which is sometimes spotted at pro-Trump events.

Yet another anonymous poster stumbled on a piece of Europop music from the 1980s, a forgettable song titled “Shadilay.” The record label had a cartoon frog on it, waving a magic wand. The band’s name? P.E.P.E. This hit the chans the same day that Hillary Clinton denounced Pepe the Frog and took a tumble. Many people on the chans decided, or ironically pretended to have decided, and at all events acted as though they had decided, that they’d just received a big vote of confidence from Kek the Frog God.

such as the alt-right’s mascot, Pepe the Frog.

Describing Pepe the cartoon frog as “associated with white supremacy” is akin to describing the Stars and Stripes as “associated with flag burning.” It is technically correct, factually true—and utterly clueless.