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Can a meme be redeemed? Thats the central question in Arthur Jones Feels Good Man a documentary that premiered at Sundance this year charting the course of the creator of Pepe the Frog, a comic book character turned universally recognized meme, as he attempts to reclaim it from racists and shitposters.

The sweet, gentle pacing of the doc fits well with the calm, sensitive demeanor of its creator Matt Furie . Furie is described as ethereal by one of his friends in the piece and thats mostly true. As Pepe is created, then coopted by the residents of 4chan and turned into a meme representing ennui, disenfranchisement and white supremacy in turn, Furie takes it mostly in stride.

But hes not without passion, as lines begin to be crossed and Pepe becomes registered as hate speech by the Anti-Defamation League, Furie sees an opportunity to try to reclaim his symbol. Hes unsuccessful for the same reason anything is popular on the internet there are simply too many nerve endings to properly anesthetize them all.

The vast majority of the people that use Pepe are completely unaware of its origins. And the general community of Internet people that communicate via memes go a step beyond that to being un-able to even grasp the concept of ownership. Once something has entered into the cultural bloodstream of the Internet, its origins often dwindle to insignificance.

That doesnt, of course, stop a creator from existing or caring how their creation is used. And the portrait painted here of a gentle and caring artist forced to watch the subversion and perversion of his creation is heartbreaking and important.

Feels Good Man stands above the pack of docs about internet cultural phenomenon. It peels back enough of the layers of the onion to be effective in ways that analysis of culturally complex idioms born online are often deficient.

Too many times over the years weve seen online movements analyzed with an overly simplistic point of view. And the main way they typically fall down is by not including the influence and effect of that staple of online life: trolls. People doing things for the hell of it who then become a part of a larger movement but always have that arms length remove to fall back on, able to claim that it was just a gag.

Jones mentioned during a Q&A after the screening that they wanted Furies art to be a character, to have a part to play throughout the film. In addition to scenes of Matt drawing, this is best accomplished by the absolutely gorgeous animation sequences that Jones and a team of animators created of Pepe and the rest of the Boys Club characters. Theyre delightful and welcome respite from the somewhat hammer-like nature of the dark places Pepe is unwittingly drawn by the various subcultures he is adopted by.

Its not a perfect film; the sequences with an occultist are goofy in a way that doesnt fit with the overall flavor of the piece. But its probably one of the better documentary films ever made about the Internet era and well worth watching when it gets picked up.

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Sundance: Feels Good Man charts a path of redemption for Pepe - TechCrunch

At the beginning of the documentary. Feels good man, cartoonist Matt Furie crouches in a swamp and raises a small green frog no larger than his thumb. He looks like a father who probably has a skateboard: shorts, printed shirt, yellow cap, cold California. Furie smiles when the frog perches on her outstretched hand. For a moment, it poses like a miniature garden statue. Then he slides down Furie's arm and is out of his control. Furie does not react. It is not the first frog that escapes.

When Furie first drew Pepe the Frog, a cartoon that has become one of the world's most recognized and controversial memes, it was just another scribble, the last of a long line of anthropomorphic amphibians. "It has been a kind of slow dripping frogs all my life," says Furie. In 2005, Pepe became part of the Furie comic Children's Club, a series about a group of silly and careless friends in a funk of the early twenties. In 2016, Pepe the Frog was a symbol of hate online, a creature of racist nightmare and beswastika loved by digital white supremacists. Pepe's slogan, "It feels good, man," was also subjected to a sinister remix. The phrase that Furie wrote as the response of a weirdo being caught peeing with his pants around his ankles went through the darkest of the Internet prisms and became "Kill Jews, man." "I'm just a spectator," says Furie.

Feels good man It persists in the distressed online reactionaries that drove Pepe from fragile to fascist, but above all, he scribbles an intimate and uncomfortable portrait of a naive cartoonist who tries to drag a JPEG of the jaws of the ugliest corners of 4chan, simply because it is correct and because its his. He is an author of children's books, an unlikely gladiator, except for how he is not. In 2020, the creators' struggle to obtain ownership of their Internet art is the largest accumulation of dust in the city. By telling Furie's story, Feels good man exposes the choreography and competitive emotions of that fight. Pepe the Frog is no longer really a frog, just an enigmatic prize in a fight that no one has really figured out how to win.

If you have to criticize Feels good man, which opens today at the Sundance Film Festival, is that you leave the documentary feeling somewhat overwhelmed. Matt Furie may have an intelligible arc from apathy to discomfort and pseudo triumph, but Pepe? Pepe is everywhere. "One of the reasons why [Pepe] could be co-opted so easily is because people didn't understand where he had come from," says director Arthur Jones. "From the beginning, I knew that I wanted Matt's comics to come alive." Between their talking heads, Feels good man it's an acid journey of Furie-style animations, songs performed by fans of Children's Club, original drawings by Pepe that have nothing to do with Children's Club, 4chan conversations on the image board, videos of teenagers painting their faces to resemble Pepe's. Jones spent 4chan months just collecting everything, and it shows. On the other hand, Pepe is a meme. The meaningless cramming of his story is so inevitable that it is almost more satisfying that way: just like Pepe de Furie, you drown in the digital conversation.

At its best, Feels good man He is an enthusiastic observer of Furie's emotional journey, which he does in a subtle and sober way, and it seems true. Furie barely gets excited and the documentary doesn't try to do it, but you can hear everything in a few quotes. It is almost a three panel comic. At first, he is the quietest punk in the world: "I am an artist," he says. "I don't like to sue other artists." Gradually, he becomes disillusioned. He is a guy whose work has gone viral, but when he meets fans, they say it must be crap that his work is "kidnapped." "It's definitely crap, but nothing is forever," he says. Then, even more silently, he doubts: Right? Hehe. "The last step does not even come from Furie himself, but is reported by his partner, the artist Aiyana Udesen." He is thinking: & # 39; I have worked all my life as an artist, and now I will be grouped with This strange new swastika? & # 39; "It takes you a long time to realize that your creation has turned into honey for a swarm of intolerant bees, and even more to decide if you want to do something about it.

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Pepe the Frog predicted the world full of modern memes - NewsDio

Dear racist friend: that Martin Luther King Jr. quote you posted yesterday wasnt enough to convince me that youre not terribly racist.

Yesterday was MLK Day, the annual event where we celebrate the life of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. which was cut short by a gunshot wound on January 20th, 1968. The day marks an annual reminder that all is still not well within the United States when it comes to race and equality.

Its also my annual reminder of how even the most racist people on Earth will take one day out of the year to sheepishly acknowledge a man who was killed by an avowed racist.

I found a really good tweet about the whole thing the other day. It was from the FBI, of all places, which did exactly as you did and tweeted out a solemn and inspirational quote from the late Doctor. "The time is always right to do what is right," read the quote, which is exactly the sort of thing youd see on an inspirational poster with a black-and-white photo of Martin Lither King Jr. in the background.

RELATED: Is Disney Plus' Disclaimer About Racist Scenes Enough?

But heres the thing: the FBI HATED Martin Luther King. They were actively trying to sabotage him at every opportunity. After Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the National Mall in August of 1963, the FBI approved a huge surveillance operation against Dr. King, with Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan calling him "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation."

The surveillance didn't reveal any illegal actions on MLK's part, but they did reveal a history of extramarital affairs. Later, the FBI packaged up all their "King sex tapes" and then mailed them to his home address. His wife opened the package. She wasn't pleased.

Worse, the letter inside the package made it seem like it was written by a disillusioned black former supporter and demanded the King halt his activism. To date, the FBI has never apologized.

That one nice MLK quote really doesnt cut it from them, and it certainly doesnt cut it from you. Now, stop sharing all those Pepe the Frog memes and be a civilized human being for once.

Source: Twitter, Vox

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Sorry Racist Friend, That MLK Quote You Posted Yesterday Meant Nothing Coming From You - Moms

Popular Korean streamer HAchubby is well-known for her love of her Pepe the Frog plush, but lately viewers have hilariously become concerned that she's holding the soft toy against his will. She took to her broadcast to clear up the claims.

HAchubby is one of the breakout stars of Twitch in 2019, as her journey to learn English and discover meme culture has made her connect with thousands of viewers.

However, the streamer's love of Pepe the Frog took a hilarious turn when a joke clip accusing her of holding the plush hostage went viral in December, and now she's responded.

The popular streamer responded to her chat saying that the plush was in danger, and said "Pepe is here!" while holding the iconic frog in her hands, and turned to him to ask "Are you okay?"

Hilariously, HAchubby hid behind Pepe, and began to talk as him. "Yes, I'm not lonely!" the doll spoke aloud. "Oh, you aren't lonely. I am so happy! Thank you, Pepe!" the Twitch personality replied.

"Don't worry about me, I'm happy!" she made the plush say, before hugging him. Her chat then erupted into some accepting the frog's response, while others still claimed he was being held against his will.

The Korean streamer's ridiculous skit was in response to a clip that went viral from her December 21 broadcast, when she watched a fan-made video that had a voice over dub with the plush claiming he was being abused.

"I used to have a happy life. I was a normal frog. Then a few days later it started. The new girl is not nice!" the comedic video said, before it cut to various clips of the streamer poking the doll, or dropping it during past broadcasts.

"She attacks me almost every time she streams. I live in constant fear," the voice said, before a clip played of the frog falling off her desk. "I was not fine. That hurt a lot!" Pepe stated, while the Korean exclaimed that it was all a misunderstanding.

HAchubby has had an incredible year, as she only had 700 followers at the start in January, and has exploded in popularity due to hilarious viral clips of her learning about meme culture with her audience.

As of the time of this article, the Korean star has amassed a staggering 148,000 followers on Twitch, making her one of the fastest growing channels on the streaming platform.

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HAchubby responds to claims she's holding Pepe the Frog hostage - Dexerto

OpinionFrom the political to the completely pointless, memes have brought unending happiness to some of the worst days on social media

Friday, 20th December 2019, 3:54 pm

The internet is a dark, dank place that has, arguably, allowed the most awful traits of human nature to thrive. While this has become markedly worse in the last 10 years, the 2010s also saw the rise of the single thing that makes this hellscape bearable: the meme.

British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins first defined a "meme" in 1976 as a behaviour or idea passed from one animal to another through imitation. In online culture this word has come to mean an image, phrase or video - often humourous - that is rapidly copied and re-shared on social media with slight variations.

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From the political to the completely pointless, memes have brought unending happiness to some of the worst days on social media. Among the fractures of disparate online cultures, memes are one of the few things that connect us. It is the most community-like medium we have, uniting us through shares and lols.

A shorthand language

One of the most joyous things about memes is that they are essentially a constantly evolving modern language, shared and understood by people around the world, regardless of what language they speak.

Scott Wark, an associate researcher at the University of Warwick, agrees. Internet memes are undoubtedly the most important popular culture medium online, he tells i.

One key example of this was 2012's "Grumpy Cat" - an animal, and meme, so popular it subsequently sparked merchandise, a film and multiple consumer endorsements. The picture featured a cat named Tardar Sauce with an extremely unhappy expression caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism.

At this time, the main format of memes were pictures with text above and below the image, and "Grumpy Cat" took this form, with people adding pessimistic captions as if the cat were speaking.

Wark explains that this format continued to reign in meme culture for a few years, up until the emergence of the "Doge" meme in 2013 which was developed from images of a Japanese photographers dog found on a blog.

In the meme, a Shiba Inu dog is seen in various poses, but there is brightly coloured text in the Comic Sans font plastered all over the picture. The idea is that the text represents the innermost thoughts of the dog (or person posting).

This style was far more abstract than "Grumpy Cat", and the image looks more chaotic as the text and image interact with one another.

This was a big moment. From then the style of memes radically shifted, marking the beginning of our creative approach to them and a more abstract way of presenting thoughts and opinions.

Moreover, the way Twitter and Instagram users can immediately understand a memes message with very little context is extraordinary, especially when they are constantly changing.

There's something incredibly powerful about how online communities have created a smart, witty way to converse with and understand one another, wherever they are in the world.

Mental health

While memes can unite the masses, they also appeal to specific groups. For instance, the rise of mental health memes in the mid-2010s allowed people with mental health conditions to identify and confide in one another while partaking in some cathartic dark humour.

After this came the rise of astrological memes which, in the same way, became a sub-culture for people wanting to self-deprecate and laugh about their negative characteristics.

These were particularly happy moments in internet culture as they offered a vessel to self-reflect and laugh at yourself. Amid trolling, online cancel culture and general negativity online, these memes offered a positive alternative.

The image began recirculating on bulletin site 4chan in 2015, as Donald Trump gained popularity on the site. It also featured on Reddit and a year later, The Daily Beast published a piece entitled "How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol" outlining how an otherwise harmless figure had been turned into a symbol of monstrosity and vitriol.

It's fair to say this was one of the lowest points in meme history, demonstrating how innocent imagery can be adopted by the alt-right to perpetuate their messaging.

Next decade and the impact of TikTok

Looking into the next decade, it's clear that memes won't disappear - they will always adapt alongside online culture.

Wark believes TikTok, a video-sharing social network, has already laid the groundwork for this transition, and said it is essentially "memetic culture in overdrive".

Were seeing multiple versions of the same video but some go viral and others do not, and they have really slight differences separating them, he says.

We have already seen the crossover between Twitter and TikTok this year with the huge popularity of "Trying Kombucha for the First Time", in which stills taken from a video by TikTok user Brittany Tomlinson went viral and became a template for other memes. The first image showed her looking disgusted, while the other showed her looking more convinced, and the images paired together were used to highlight a pivot of opinion. It was an example of how users can take elements of videos and create a whole generation of new memes.

Wark adds that on TikTok, we're seeing users become even more creative with music and rhythm in a way the image format never afforded.

Whatever shape or form they're presented in, it's clear their ongoing transitions and transformations are a sign of their unwavering influence in modern communication. They don't disappear - they adapt. The 2020s will undoubtedly be a revolutionary and progressive time for them.

Ruchira Sharma is a staff writer at i

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From Grumpy Cat to TikTok, this decade belonged to memes and their ability to unite the masses - iNews