Campaign Aims to Help Pepe the Frog Shed Its Image as Hate Symbol (original) (raw)
U.S.|Campaign Aims to Help Pepe the Frog Shed Its Image as Hate Symbol
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- Oct. 17, 2016
Pepe the Frog, a cartoon figure that became an internet meme associated with racism and anti-Semitism.
A group that fights anti-Semitism hopes to rehabilitate the image of a cartoon frog that was co-opted and became associated in social media with racism and bigotry.
Less than a month ago, the group, the Anti-Defamation League, added the cartoon figure, Pepe the Frog, to its list of hate symbols, where it joined the ranks of the swastika and the Confederate battle flag.
The group announced on Friday an experiment to try and reform the image, working with its creator, Matt Furie, who will create “a series of positive Pepe memes and messages” to be promoted on social media with the hashtag #SavePepe.
“Pepe was never intended to be used as a symbol of hate,” Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the group, said in a news release. “The sad frog was meant to be just that, a sad frog. We are going to work with Matt and his community of artists to reclaim Pepe so that he might be used as a force for good, or at the very least to help educate people about the dangers of prejudice and bigotry.”
Pepe the Frog did not originally have anti-Semitic connotations, the league said in a news release last month. The meme proliferated in outlets such as 4chan, an anonymous online message board, and the social media site Reddit, and morphed into an icon linked with anti-Jewish and bigoted ideas.
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