Pepe the Frog

Pepe
Boy's Club character
First appearance	2005 in Boy's Club
Created by	Matt Furie
Information
Species	Frog
Gender	Male

Pepe the Frog is a popular Internet meme. The fictional green anthropomorphic frog with a frog-like face and a humanoid body is originally from a comic series by Matt Furie called Boy's Club. It became an Internet meme when its popularity steadily grew across Myspace, Gaia Online and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, it had become one of the most popular memes used on 4chan. Beginning in 2015, his image has increasingly been appropriated as a symbol of the controversial alt-right movement. Because of the use of Pepe by the alt-right, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe the Frog to their database of hate symbols in 2016, adding that not all Pepe memes are racist. Since then, Pepe's creator has publicly expressed his dismay at Pepe being used as a hate symbol.

The meme's original use has evolved over time and has many variants, including Sad frog, Smug frog, Feels frog, and "You will never..." frog.

Pepe the Frog was created by American artist Matt Furie. Its usage as a meme came from his comic, Boy's Club #1. The progenitor of Boy's Club was a zine that Furie made on Microsoft Paint called Playtime, which included Pepe as a character. He posted his comic in a series of blog posts on Myspace in 2005.

In the comic, Pepe was found urinating with his pants pulled down to his ankles and the catchphrase "feels good man" was his rationale. Furie took those posts down when the printed edition was published in 2006.

Pepe was used in blog posts on Myspace and became an in-joke on Gaia Online. In 2008, the page containing Pepe and the catchphrase was scanned and uploaded to 4chan's /b/ board, which was described by Motherboard as his "permanent home". It took off among 4chan users, who adapted Pepe's face and the catchphrase to fit different scenarios and emotions, such as melancholy, anger, and surprise. Color was also added, originally a black and white line drawing, Pepe became green with brown lips, sometimes in a blue shirt. "Feels Guy", or "Wojak", originally an unrelated character typically used to express melancholy, was eventually often paired with Pepe in user-made comics or images.

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Wikipedia