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Anti-Defamation League and Pepe the Frog's Creator Are Teaming Up To Save Pepe From Hate-Symbol Status (businessinsider.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bad-reputation dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: Matt Furie, the creator of the widely known "Pepe the Frog" meme, is joining forces with the Anti-Defamation League to reclaim the symbol from the alt-right and make it a "force for good," according to a press release. Furie and the ADL plan to start a social-media campaign by creating "a series of positive Pepe memes and messages" and promoting them with the hashtag #SavePepe, according to the release. The ADL declared "Pepe the Frog" to be a hate symbol in late September. "It's completely insane that Pepe has been labeled a symbol of hate, and that racists and anti-Semites are using a once peaceful frog-dude from my comic book as an icon of hate," Furie said in a column for Time magazine. While fiercely condemning the "racist and fringe groups" that use Pepe to propagate divisive views, Furie said Pepe was meant to "celebrate peace, togetherness, and fun." The meme, which originated from a 2005 cartoon, has been hijacked by the alt-right movement in the past several months. Members of the movement have used the meme to convey often racist and anti-Semitic messages. The messages prompted the ADL to add Pepe to its "Hate on Display" database, which documents anti-Semitic hate symbols. According to the ADL's press release on the #SavePepe campaign, Furie will speak at its "Never Is Now" summit against anti-Semitism on November 17 in New York City. The panel will focus specifically on online hate campaigns. Furie published a new Pepe cartoon on Monday detailing his "alt-right election nightmare," which depicts a sad Pepe morphing into a frog that resembles Donald Trump and then a monster. Pepe appears trapped in the mouth of the monster. The next panel depicts a nuclear explosion. Pepe then awakes and hides under his mattress.

4 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. The Comic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everyone who sees that comic is just going to laugh harder than they were before.

    It's fucking hilarious seeing these losers take a stupid meme so seriously.

  2. What's wrong with hate symbols? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If speech doesn't offend anyone, nobody will try to ban it. The only type of speech in need of protection is that which someone considers offensive and wants to ban. I consider hate speech a good thing because it's indicative of a free society. One of the first things to go in a society that isn't free is hate speech, a fact that has been documented throughout history. Regimes that aren't free tend to restrict speech, and we need to promote free thought and free speech. In a free society, you should speak against hate speech rather than attempt to ban it.

    1. Re: What's wrong with hate symbols? by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In another article on Slashdot, we have people boycotting a Silicon Valley business associated with a CEO who has dared to donate to Trump.

      That's freedom of association and it's at least as fundamental a right as free speech. If that's how they choose to stand up for what they believe in, that's their business. You and I, in turn, may use this information to decide whom we want to associate with. I don't see the problem.

      And we have a GOP office being firebombed just the other day.

      That's a crime. That is a problem. I hope whoever did it is caught and does hard time.

      Don't you dare pin this all on the right.

      More to the point, don't pretend that "the right" or "the left" is a heterogeneous mass. In both cases, we're talking about a loose association of different individuals and groups with different agendas, some of whom are extremists.

      To paraphrase a friend of mine:

      It's okay to be a conservative; some values are worth preserving and defending. It's okay to be a progressive; the times they are a-changing. It's okay to be a radical; sometimes the joint needs to be shaken up. It's okay to be all three, perhaps on different issues. But it's never okay to be a fundamentalist.

      --
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  3. Actaully the WSJ debunked Hillary's claim already by Noishkel · · Score: 5, Informative

    The TL:DR version of this story was that someone trolled 'The Daily Beast' pretty hard by creating a lot of fake racist Pepe's under a pseudonym of 'Jared Taylor Swift'. To quote the article the Daily Beast ended up publishing was 'more or less a complete troll job,”

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/regression-to-the-meme-1473960707