once upon a time if I said the words
famous frog you'd might think back to WB
or Kermit but today at least if you're
of a certain age the name on the tip of
your tongue is probably Pepe Pepe the
Frog first appeared on the internet back
in 2005 in an Internet comic entitled
boys club published to myspace by artist
Matt Fury it was a light-hearted comic
about stoner friends Brett and eel and
wolf and Pepe the first Pepe means to
become an online phenomenon was feels
good man who appeared on Fury's MySpace
page in late 2005 in a comic strip where
Pepe is shown taking a leak and lowering
his pants all the way to the floor with
the caption feels good man the
inspiration for the comic came to fury
when he thought back to a childhood
memory of his cousin when we were kids
we went to elementary school together
and we would go into the public restroom
and he would pull his pants all the way
down to go pee and I thought it was
hilarious
feels good man first went viral on Gaia
online in 2006 and then on 4chan around
2008 the next iteration of Pepe feels
bad man emerged in 2009 from a user on
the bodybuilding forums it would become
known as sad pet
sad Pepe then evolved into the you will
never ex meme and the fields meme of May
2010 it's right about here where we get
the term rare pet back in response to
pet BAE's growing popularity poor Chan
began to generate a wealth of new unique
pepe images often depicting Pepe as
beloved characters from pop culture
there was a sense of wanting to reclaim
Pepe that urge to make their mark on the
mean drove so many new pet days that it
became a game for chanters would post
new rare pet days and award each other
good boy points for the funniest or most
original it's this phenomenon that would
eventually evolve into the Pepe economy
and change everything the Pepe from
boy's club is supposed to be a harmless
donor with the wacky sense of humor up
to 2010 most pet day memes reflected
however with the emergence of smoke pet
day in 2011 pet based persona began to
shift smoke Pepe was first posted to for
chance TV board in June 2011 as a way
for users to bash the humor on the
popular American comedy the Big Bang
Theory
bazinga smug Pepe became increasingly
popular and was perceived to be an
antagonist or bully to the feels good
man and sad peppe's despite this pet day
was still widely considered to be a
good-natured mean and its popularity
grew Pepe got his own official tumblr
blog created by Matt fury in June 2014
followed by an official subreddit and
Instagram account
soon after had they took another small
step toward a more aggressive image with
angry pet backed normies are.what 4chan
called the rest of us
the angry Pepe meme also became the
first pet bait to be associated with the
largely controversial r9k board on 4chan
in december of 2014 while it started
with meaningless goodboy points the Pepe
economy mutated in October 2014 people
started to literally sell their original
Pepe memes on Craigslist and as a part
of the elaborate joke other people would
actually buy them for cold hard cash
this eventually hit an absurd extreme on
April 7th 2015 a bulk collection of rare
pet days were sold for nearly $100,000
by 2015 pet day trading was a phenomenon
that went beyond 4chan tumblr and other
mainstream communities were into it what
had originally started as fortunes
backlash to peppe's popularity had
become its own mean in a way for Chan's
rare Pepe phenomenon had backfired on
itself rare Pepe trading was getting hot
so hot in fact that the community
devised its own cryptocurrency basically
they made their own form of Bitcoin
called Pepe cash then started a website
for the express purpose of buying and
selling rare pet days so I'm here at the
rare directory calm and that is where
you can see the next dates that have
been certified by the rare Pippi lock
change foundation just like with
bitcoins to use Pepa cash you have to
download the entire history of every
transaction onto your computer and join
the blockchain when you purchase a rare
pet day with Pepe cash in the pet base
fear the card will be placed in your
virtual wallet currently it is one
dollar for every 181 pet day cash much
like a pokemon card rare Pepe cards have
a certain number released with a certain
value and rareness attached to it the
rarest rare Pepe of them all is my
little
which sold for 1 million Pepe cash or
about $3,300 while all of this craziness
was happening at the relative fringes of
the internet pet they finally reached
worldwide recognition on November 8th
2014 it wasn't for Chan who finally
mainstreamed Pepe
it was Katy Perry who tweeted this tired
looking Pepe after a long flight this
was followed by Nicki Minaj hosting this
Pepe meme on her Instagram account to
close out 2014 on New Year's Eve we got
the Pepe known as well means which
featured Pepe as an inviting Leonardo
DiCaprio great gatsby celebrating his
success with the whole world this was
Pepe speak and the moment the reaction
to pop Pepe started to escalate
massively the incredible engine of
creative Pepe art first popularized and
spread on tumblr and read it and then
spun into overdrive but for Chan's r9k
board was about to become political in
one way or another fortune had been
trying to control that base in the
beginning but it was around fall of 2015
that had evolved from an effort to
reclaim by creativity with rare pet days
to reclaim by perversion twitter user
and 4chan or jared t-swift
told The Daily Beast in 2016 in regards
to the reclaim Pepe campaign that r9k
basically mixed Pepe in with Nazi
propaganda etc we built that association
so rare pet they started to become edgy
but most of that edginess stayed
harmlessly unfortunately but only for a
while to quote a song by the Megas what
always ends in bloodshed begins as just
a game on Wednesday September 30th 2015
an anonymous user posted to the r9k
board on 4chan the following message
some of you guys are alright don't go to
school tomorrow if you are in the
northwest happening thread will be
posted tomorrow morning so long spaced
box next to this text was you guessed it
Pepe with a gun at first the other r9k
users posted jokes like is a Bader
uprising finally happening or it's
either you kill me or my parents do
I'll be waiting lad but then some
started to post advice like user two two
seven eight five four four eight who
said I suggest you enter a classroom and
tell people that you will take them as
hostages make everyone get into one
corner and then open fire the anonymous
user who started the
thread was 26 year old chris
harper-mercer on october 1st 2015
harper-mercer entered the Uniqua
Community College campus of Oregon and
reported to Snyder Hall for his writing
class after entering the classroom and
firing a warning shot the students were
forced to sit back in the corner of the
room as he opened fire on killing eight
students and their associate professor
injuring nine others
after a brief shootout with the police
harper-mercer ended his own life this is
the deadliest mass shooting in the state
of Oregon today when news reached the
r9k board the users expressed both shock
disbelief and admiration this was the
first time that pet they had been
scrutinized by the press with media
outlets like dais digital in The Daily
Dot calling Pepe a symbol of hate almost
at the same exact time in 2015 we get
the first explicitly political pet bait
from a major public figure themselves
then candidate Donald Trump retweeted
the following image with the caption you
can't stump the Trump of a pet bait
drawn in his likeness this escalated
over the next year with clinton's
infamous basket of deplorable z' quote
leading to Donald Trump jr. posting this
parody of the Expendables
and so Pepe became a political weapon
while the world was beginning to see
Pepe as political 4chan was making Pepe
their very own god of darkness the cult
of cat cos it would become known as his
for Chan's own joke religion it came to
be through a series of odd coincidences
kek started as the korean laughter
abbreviation similar to english LOL the
use of ket in blizzards original
Starcraft inspired the developers to use
it as an alternative left macro in the
game world of warcraft from wow 4chan
began to use it as their own
lol soon the community discovered that
there was an Egyptian god of darkness
with the same name Keck and that God
just happened to have the head of a frog
and so the association was born quickly
tech became the ultimate absurd extreme
for Chan's reappropriation of Pepe they
turned him into a Luciferian deity
intent on hexing hillary clinton and
bringing donald trump into the White
House for Chan took Pepe all the way to
hell and in the end they got exactly
what they wanted on September 27th 2016
Pepe the Frog was placed on the
anti-defamation league
list of hate symbols a month later Matt
fury wrote an article for time.com
entitled Pepe the frogs creator I'm
reclaiming him he was never about hate
in the article fury closes with this
it's completely insane that Pepe has
been labeled a symbol of hate it's a
nightmare and the only thing I can do is
see this as an opportunity to speak out
against hate I understand that it's out
of my control
but in the end Pepe is whatever you say
he is and I the creator say that Pepe is
love but Pepe was now indelibly linked
with fortunes agenda with the 2016
election kept the god of darkness
fulfilled his promise and the basket of
deplorable --zz were here to stay
finally in May 2017 in an act of
frustration Matt fury himself completed
the destruction of the Pepe he created
by killing Pepe offs and his comic this
leaves a lot of fans of old-school Pepe
at odds that they wasn't originally
created to have his faith he is or was a
fun-loving pothead
On February 21st in 2017
Django bait a rare Pepe collector and
enthusiast said in an interview with a
daily dot that some like me thinks that
we should make Pepe great again you have
to be aware that Pepe has a symbol of
hate and racism is a merely North
American stain our rare Pepe trading
community is global Pepe is a mirror and
the mirror is not racist just because a
racist is using it so as Pepe the Frog
just a mean or a hateful let us know
what you think in the comments below and
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