The Real Story Behind Pepe The Frog

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

That trick, lol. If you got overextended and tried to grab too much real estate too quick that could happen. A sneaky player could pull one off too.



Memes are interesting and their method of dissemination makes the spreading of ideas (or countering others against being spread) can be done by nearly anyone if they've the interest and ability. Where ability lacks, there are others willing to help fill those gaps.

It's modern guerilla warfare; think of it as this generations Kilroy. It's asymmetric in that it requires very little input yet can have tremendous outcome.



It's an interesting idea, and the fact the CNN was brought in against Pepe shows how serious the ((($$$))) behind the Hillary campaign takes the notion. If they didn't think it was a problem, they never would have mentioned it. But as soon as they tried to attach it to "white-nationalism," I knew they were worried.



The Clinton campaign is #ting it's collective pants right now that they'll get absolutely buried by the popular vote in a landslide not even contemplated; way too big for them to be able to comfortably rig. They've (the Clintons) made a lot of promises to a lot of different interests, and all of them are keyed upon her getting the big chair. There's a lot riding on this election, and they're not going to leave anything to chance.

a reply to: Bobaganoosh

GAWD look at the image of Trump, the black and white image of his eyes. That's not PROPAGANDA! Nope!

a reply to: saintdopeium

What a brilliant conspiracy

How about this for another link in the conspiracy

Futurama's hypnotoad

Hypnotoad is a large toad-like creature that has large oscillating multicolored eyes and emits a droning hum. His eyes glow all the time. The toad apparently uses these as a power of hypnotism on surrounding people and animals

The Hypnotoad might have been inspired by the V-frogs from Isaac Asimov's novel Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus. They are frog like, three legged creatures who can control the emotions of those around them, mostly serving as a defense mechanism against predators. A trance like that of the Hypnotoad is also possible when large numbers of V-frogs are working together. Due to their emotional control, they are extremely popular as pets.

It gets deeper

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

Have you ever visited 4chan? There's a non-stop stream of random bits of... well everything... which is why it's the world's foremost "meme" factory. I've been around a while, back to the BBS days before the WWW was a thing and I can say that 4chan is basically the culture of the "underground" computer scene of the late 80's and 90's from BBSes, IRC and Usenet except now there's so much more material to draw from, it's all indexed and searchable, accessible at speeds that are thousands of times faster by many many more people with access to much more powerful tools.

It's a non-stop stream of random... everything... (like a million posts a day) processed by millions of minds. The people who participate are big on things like humor that is derivative, self-referencing, snarky and esoteric (until it gets picked up by the rest of the world). So it doesn't surprise me to see people put these things together.

4chan is a sort of hive mind. (a hive mind whose personality is more or less that of a young, sexually frustrated, middle-class white male who plays a lot of video games and makes obscene phone calls)

Pepe was popular because of the sort of comic strip Boys Club was, lots of WoW players on 4chan, it was only a matter of time before Kek and Pepe were put together. 10% of 2 digit numbers are "dubs."

Do I think 4chan has used "chaos magick" to manifest supernatural powers through belief in Pepe? No. It makes a great story though!

I do think that if the Clinton campaign was smart, instead of stupid "explainers" they'd jump on this and present it to fundamentalists as evidence that Pepe is a new breed of "Internet cult" that is threat to their religion and supports Donald Trump (who may be the anti-Christ! Think it through: plague of frogs in Egypt, Egyptian frog god Kek, Donald Trump).



Side note:

If you Google some of these terms, you'll find lengthy posts at the Dailystormer and the Proudboy (white nationalism calling itself "western chauvinism")

Just sayin' that overlap exists whether people want ot acknowledge it or not. See for yourself.

a reply to: theantediluvian
These are the kind of posts that made me come to love your work over the years AD.

Thanks for your insight into this, as I am totally ignorant on the subject of 4chan and the like. I have never been there nor will I ever go there.

I feel like I just took a trip vicariously through your post, and am thankful I will never have to actually go myself.

D/P I know I only clicked once.....lol

a reply to: saintdopeium

This is completely based on falsehoods. The image they use is NOT of Kuk but of Heket, and she is a Goddess of childbirth, not light or chaos. They have deliberately taken a female statue of Heket and twisted it into a male of a different name to suit their beliefs. There are also no vowels in Egyptian so they cannot claim the spelling is the same.

Kuk's hieroglyph looks like so:

The Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis/Apep, and even if you think this name is close enough, it was a snake, not a frog. Deny ignorance, please.

a reply to: SargonThrall

Thanks for the information. Doesn't change the entertainment value of the story. It does ruin my want for the existence of meme magic, tho.

originally posted by: Bobaganoosh
a reply to: Phage

Amazingly, yes they do. Even at the highest levels.

www.hillaryclinton.com...

I laughed at first. Even asked if this was real life. I still can't believe it.

Lol, the Hillary campaign has officially went off the deep end. First it was the 20 twitter questions that were absurd considering her own issues. Now Pepe the frog is plastered on Hillary's campaign site. Her motto should be: Divide and Conquer, because that's exactly what Hillary and her campaign are doing.

10 Million more votes for Trump! It's going to be a landslide in November at this rate.

a reply to: Phage

I guess. There's a sucker born every minute.

Only one . i thought the number would be higher .

On Friday afternoon, Richard Spencer, president of the innocuously named National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank, took the podium at a tiny conference room at the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington. Earlier this week, Spencer and his guests, Jared Taylor, editor of the white supremacist site American Renaissance, and Peter Brimelow, of the anti-immigration site VDARE, announced they would hold a discussion called “What is the alt-right?” ahead of Trump’s speech at the Values Voter Summit across town at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

The Alt Right Gives a Press Conference - New York Magazine

“So, who are we?” Spencer said. “I think if I were to describe what a lot of people know about the alt-right, it’s probably some things they’ve seen online — it’s Pepe memes, it’s the parenthesis,” he said, referring to the practice, first used by anti-Semites but later reclaimed by Jews, of putting parentheses around the names of Jewish writers to signify their ethnicity.

It's a post-fact era, but there are some facts for you regarding this topic.

a reply to: Gryphon66

I am having a hard time buying the "alt right" origins of Pepe. The swastika wasn't originally National Socialist symbol. It was co-opted.

I could always be wrong. I had no idea what the alt right really was until I read the article that you posted. I thought it was Seed Man listeners and conspiracy fans.

That said, I didn't buy the entire history in the OP but it was interesting.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Bah the alt-right seems to be trying to take credit for the overarching beliefs of a bunch of loosely gathered internet trolls and boundary pushers and putting a label on them. Knowing them with the intent to bait and troll their opponents.

It's silly. It's like linking us with a whole bunch of other conspiracy sites and having one step up and saying that since they are a truther site and host other sites like ATS that have truther members as well, we're clearly all Truthers. It's disingenuous at best. And anyone falling for it and pursuing it is setting themselves up to be made a fool of if they push too hard. Probably the point. Hillary has been trolled hard.

But Hillary and her team are dealing with internet trolls. They aren't going to fight this blanket silly statements labeling them all as white supremacists by crying about it. Is not how they work. Instead they will bait and trap and make a big #ing joke of the whole issue, letting their opponents make fools of themselves using trolling tactics and misdirection. Causing Hillary and her ilk to jump at shadows trying to prove the white supremacy narrative and constantly being lead into traps exposing her ignorance. It's like a really effing weird Warner Brothers cartoon. They're going to bring her down to their level, then beat her with experience.

Hillary a presidential candidate vs. a giant group of loosely organized internet trolls... this election is becoming such a joke.

Our candidates have fallen so far...

a reply to: saintdopeium
Haha apologies good sir, I meant the last remark to be towards the group, but it sounded like I specified it at you. I doubt that if I spread the word I would be listened to, and even if so it would be ignored. It is easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled, and all that.

Pepe is a lie!

a reply to: saintdopeium

i will make a thread about my opinion on this later

a reply to: Puppylove

So we shouldn't take the word of the virtual founder of the alt right on the issue?

Here's the thing: they HAVE co-opted Pepe. It's what they're talking about when they talk about a new era, a post fact era... Now whatever Pepe was ... He is now a symbol of the alt right ... And gosh ... No one can take a silly internet meme seriously ...

... Right?

a reply to: Gryphon66

It doesn't work like that. Just because one group decides to use a symbol for their own ends does not mean all other uses of the symbol get nullified.

If a nazi decides to endorse oranges, and they start drawing swastikas on them and posting pictures of nazi oranges, are oranges suddenly a symbol of nazism? is everyone who eats oranges now a nazi?

It's absurd. You're being trolled.

In fact it's Symbolic Lunacy

If the creator of ATS held a press conference and said we're all just Conspiracy Nutters that believe in outlandish theories, and that ATS was created for the purpose of giving us an outlet to express paranoid delusions. Does that mean we're all paranoid conspiracy nutters whole deluded in our beliefs?

The creator of Alt-Right knows full well he's talking out his ass when he tries to talk for everyone in the very loosely organized Alt-Right movement. It's a movement that uses outlandish claims, boundary pushing, and memes, and trolling techniques as it's weapons of war. I'd be very careful about letting them lead you anywhere. I don't put trolling outside the tools of it's founder. That would be silly.

a reply to: Puppylove

It doesn't work like that? But it IS working ... The fact that we're having this conversation proves it! OF COURSE WE'RE BEING TROLLED! That's the point. No matter what the derivation of Pepe was, Spencer and the alt right are now associated with it.

Pepe is an Internet meme an image ... Comparisons with Nazi fruit are pretty specious.

It's not all or nothing ... It's not based in fact ... It's post-fact ... All that matters is the connection.

Like it or not we're in a postmodern reality Puppylove.

a reply to: Gryphon66

It's working quite well at making Hillary and party look foolish. Which was the goal. You're all going nuts over a #ing cartoon frog. Do you not see what's happened? Are you all truly that oblivious?