Mediaboss Marketing

Pepe the Frog's decade-long journey from webcomic character to everyman meme to alleged hate symbol has been a topsy-turvy one, but his importance to the meme economy cannot be denied. The trope of trading and collecting "Rare Pepes," distinctive images of the famous frog, has been part of meme culture for years. And now there's real money behind it.

A February article from Reddit's Meme Insider, a parody trade publication dedicated to serious coverage of memes, explains how the fictitious market for Rare Pepesbecame a booming business.

The piece, by pseudonymous redditor JeffTheDunker, describes how the Rare Pepe economy initially functioned on a system of "Good Boy Points," a largely fictitious currency that people would trade for new and unique images of Pepe. It started out circa 2015 as a 4chan in-joke about an autistic kid who would exchange "Good Boy Points," earned by doing chores for his mom, for precious "chicken tendies," and somehow they became the dominant imaginary currency of the Rare Pepe economy.

Good Boy Points were unsustainable, though, because there was no accountability in the system: Anyone could fabricate their Good Boy Point totals. In short: the points just weren't real.

Additionally, the idea that there was valueeven imaginary or purely social valuein Rare Pepe memes caused the demand for Pepes to go up, and the market to become flooded by new content.

"When [Rare Pepes] breached mainstream media outlets, early adopters and speculators around the globe packed their bags for good, as the Pepe had, in their minds, become useless," JeffTheDunker explains in Meme Insider.

In early 2015, a poster on 4chan's /r9k/ board, incensed at the mainstream popularity Pepe was starting to enjoy, tried to kill the meme by distributing a collection of more than 1,200 Rare Pepes, labeled "the end is nigh, hope you cash out now."

4chan called this Pepe massacre "the Peppening," and it led to posters jokingly watermarking their best Rare Pepes "do not save":

The watermarks obviously did nothing to protect the Pepes, other than making them uglier, and the Rare Pepe economy looked doomed. But what if there were a way to regulate Pepes and make them impossible to copy?

We've seen Rare Pepestraded on Craigslistbefore, where physical drawings or printouts of the frog that were offered in exchange for cold, hard cashsometimes as much as $100. We've even seen them sell on eBay for nearly $100,000probably as a joke. But JeffTheDunker also suggests there's a real demand for unusual digital images of Pepe, even though it seems like those images should be trivial to replicate.

Enter: the blockchain. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin use it to make sure that digital money is unique to its owner and can't simply be copied or faked, and now it's being applied to Rare Pepes.

A blockchain-based platform called Counterparty lets users make anything into a unique digital token, and "anything" now includes Rare Pepes.

Traders can buy and sell the Pepes using Counterparty currency, but they prefer a cryptocurrency called PepeCash, which currently trades at 302 PepeCash to the dollar.

RarePepeWallet.com

RarePepeWallet.com

The universe of Rare Pepes is constantly expanding, too. There are already more than 500 distinct cards, and collectors cansubmit their ownoriginal Rare Pepes for consideration. All it takes is a payment of 4,000 PepeCash (roughly $13), a dank idea, and some design skills.

The rules for approval are stringent:

This manual approval process means none of the 1,200 compromised Pepes from the 2015 "Peppening" is likely to show up on the site. Some of them may still be dank, but they're no longer rare.

One thing you'll notice about the selection of Pepe cardsand the Rare Pepe trading community at largeis that they don't carry even a whiff of Pepe's status as an alt-right, white supremacist, pro-Donald-Trump icon.

"Most of the community don't think Pepe is an alt-right thing. Some (like me) think that we should Make Pepe Great Again and free him of that connotation," Pepe trading enthusiast Django Bates told the Daily Dot via email. "Also, you have to be aware that Pepe as a symbol of hate and racism by alt-rights is a merely North American thing. The rest of the world does not see Pepe in that context. But our Rare Pepe trading community is global. We have people from Japan, Spain, France, the U.S., Switzerland (myself), Russia, Turkey, South Africa and many other countries.

"Pepe is a meme. If alt-right idiots use it for there bullshit, then be it. Pepe is much greater and does not care about them. Pepe is a mirror. And a mirror is not racist, just because a racist is using it."

So, instead of Trumpist Pepes, you'll find card designs like My Little Pepe, which might be the most expensive Rare Pepe ever sold. It recently changed hands for 1 million PepeCash (currently about $3,300).

rarepepewallet.com

The proud owner of My Little Pepe, alias American Pegasus, told the Daily Dot, "Only one of these exist, and it belongs to a tier of the rarest pepes of all - uniques with only a single card issued."

rarepepewallet.com

"But that Pepe wasn't listed for sale in Counterparty," American Pegasus continued. "Instead the seller only would accept cold hard Pepecash. A million of them to be exact. And so I'm darn glad I had some handy, and was able to score the trade."

We're a long way from Good Boy Points now. The Rare Pepe economy is based on real money, and PepeCash is starting to take off. A recent price jump seems to have been triggered by a January Vice articleand an article Wednesday in France's Le Mondethat introduced Rare Pepe Wallets toa new group of meme fanatics.

Unlike most other digital currencies, this one is tied to the enthusiasm for an underlying product: Pepes. Even though you don't needPepeCash to buy Pepes, Pepe enthusiast find it nice to own for a number of reasons.

"Pepecash offers a fun and abstract way to value Rare Pepes apart from their underlying Counterparty value," American Pegasus explained. "As we know, with money, the value is in the utility. There are several exciting Pepecash-only features being planned, such as an entire exchange based off Pepecash and a Pepestarter crowdfunding platform. Ultimately it's best for the Pepeverse to have a highly liquid asset like this that can act as a base token for all things Pepe."

No matter how much money you dump into Rare Pepes, though, you'll never own them all. There are a handful of one-of-a-kind Pepes, and some of their owners may have lost the passphrases to their Pepe wallets or may never sell their precious rares.

"In what can be seen as a satirical jab at this growing [altcoin] culture, Rare Pepes create a metaphorical representation of the pump and dump absurdity and legitimizes it through the use of the Bitcoin blockchains immutability," Bitcoinist's Ryan Strauss wrote in November.

The people trading Rare Pepes and PepeCash don't see them as just another flash-in-the-pan alternative currency, though.

"I deeply believe that it is a lot more interesting as Dogecoin, which was only a currency," Bates told the Daily Dot. "This is not just a currency. It is Blockchain driven meme assets you really can own. It is also helping to develop Counterparty, the protocol that is used to create and trade these assets."

On the Rare Pepe Traders group chat, there's plenty of excitement about the PepeCash boom, but it's also clear that the traders and card creators have a passion for the meme.

"With pepetrading there are several things coming together as an extra: Memepower, Curiosity, Human nature of collecting all sorts of stuff, Hope for profit, Community, Interest in Blockchain Technology and above all - the lust to make fun about everything and everybody," Bates wrote. "It's the mix of it all."

One Rare Pepe designer, Nymity Nymz, told Le Monde,"I think these are just the beginnings of anindustry," and said it's even possible he could live on his Pepes someday.

Nymz, who described himself to RarePepeNews.com as a "Rapper, Ghost writer, FinTech Guru,"also told the site that the reason he creates Rare Pepes is "for 2020."

A Rare Pepe, he said, "is something that has the potential to outlive us all."

Read this article:
The Rare Pepe economy is real, and there's serious money behind it - The Daily Dot

Lithuanian nationalists carrying a picture merging Pepe the Frog and Kazys Skirpa in Kaunas, Feb. 16, 2017. (Defending History)

(JTA) Lithuanian ultranationalists marched near execution sites of Jews with banners celebrating a pro-Nazi collaborationist who called for ethnic cleansing and a symbol popular with members of the U.S. alt-right movement.

Approximately 170 people attended Thursdays annual march in Kaunas, Lithuanias second city that is also known as Kovno, the website Defending History reported.

The main banner featured a picture of the collaborationist Kazys Skirpa modified to resemble Pepe the Frog, a cartoon figure that was used by hate groups in the United States during the 2016 presidential elections, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The banner also included a quote attributed to the Pepe-like portrait of Skirpa, an envoy of the pro-Nazi movement in Lithuania to Berlin, that read Lithuania will contribute to new and better European order.

Skirpa, who has a street named for him in Kaunas, elevated anti-Semitism to a political level that could have encouraged a portion of Lithuanias residents to get involved in the Holocaust, the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania asserted in 2015. But Skirpa proposed to solve the Jewish problem not by genocide but by the method of expulsion from Lithuania, the center said.

The procession passed near the Lietovus Garage, where in 1941 locals butchered dozens of Jews. Thousands more were killed in an around Kaunas by local collaborators of the Nazis and by German soldiers in the following months.

Kaunas is ground zero of the Lithuanian Holocaust, Dovid Katz, a U.S.-born scholar and the founder of Defending History, told JTA on Friday. He condemned local authorities for allowing the march by folks who glorify the very Holocaust-collaborators, theoreticians and perpetrators who unleashed the genocide locally. Katz was one of five people who attended the march to protest and document it.

Lithuania is the only country that officially defines its domination by the former Soviet Union as a form of genocide. The name of the state-funded entity that wrote about Skirpa in 2005 refers both to the Holocaust and the so-called Soviet occupation.

The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, which until 2011did not mentionthe more than200,000 Lithuanian Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust, was established in 1992 to memorialize Lithuanians killed by the Nazi, but mostly Soviet, states.

Another placard seen at the march on Feb. 16, one of Lithuanias two independence days, featured a list of 33 names, supposedly of Jews who allegedly were involved in Soviet repression. Information on Jews and Vanagaite, the poster also read. In previous years, marchers also displayed Nazi swastikas.

Vanagaite referred to Ruta Vanagaite, a Lithuanian writer who last year co-authored an influential book about the Holocaust in Lithuania with Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The book triggered an acrimonious public debate about the longtime taboo issue of local complicity in the Holocaust.

Read the original post:
Lithuanian nationalists celebrate Holocaust-era quisling, Pepe the Frog near execution site - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Lithuanian ultra-nationalists marched near execution sites of Jews with banners celebrating a pro-Nazi collaborationist who called for ethnic cleansing and a symbol popular with members of the U.S. alt-right movement.

Approximately 170 people attended Thursdays annual march in Kaunas, Lithuanias second city that is also known as Kovno, the website Defending History reported.

The main banner featured a picture of the collaborationist Kazys Skirpa modified to resemble Pepe the Frog a cartoon figure which, according to the Anti-Defamation League, hate groups in the United States have increasingly been using during the 2016 presidential elections.

The banner also included a quote attributed to the Pepe-like portrait of Skirpa, an envoy of Lithuanian nationalist to Nazi Germany, which read: Lithuania will contribute to new and better European order.

Skirpa, who has a street named for him in Kaunas, elevated anti-Semitism to a political level that could have encouraged a portion of Lithuanias residents to get involved in the Holocaust, the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania in 2015 asserted. But Skirpa proposed to solve the Jewish problem not by genocide but by the method of expulsion from Lithuania, the center said.

The procession passed near the Lietovus Garage, where in 1941 locals butchered dozens of Jews. Thousands more were killed in an around Kaunas by local collaborators of the Nazis and by German soldiers in the following months.

Kaunas is ground zero of the Lithuanian Holocaust, Dovid Katz, a U.S.-born scholar and the founder of Defending History, told JTA Friday. He condemned local authorites for allowing the march by folks who glorify the very Holocaust-collaborators, theoreticians and perpetrators who unleashed the genocide locally. Katz was one of five people who attended the march to protest it and document it.

Lithuania is the only country in the world that officially defines its domination by the former Soviet Union as a form of genocide. The name of the state-funded entity which wrote about Skirpa in 2005 refers both to the Holocaust and to the so-called Soviet occupation.

The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, which until 2011did not mentionthe more than200,000 Lithuanian Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust, was established in 1992 to memorialize Lithuanians killed by the Nazi, but mostly Soviet, states.

Another placard seen at the march on Feb. 16, one of Lithuanias two independence days, featured a list of 33 names, supposedly of Jews who allegedly were involved in Soviet repression. Information on Jews and Vanagaite, the poster also read. In previous years, marchers also displayed Nazi swastikas.

Ruta Vanagaiteis a Lithuanian writer who last year co-authored with the Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesethal Center an influential book about the Holocaust in Lithuania. It triggered an acrimonious public debate about the longtime taboo issue of local complicity in the Holocaust.

The rest is here:
Lithuanian nationalists celebrate Holocaust-era quisling, Pepe the Frog near execution site - Cleveland Jewish News

It's not as innocent as it looks!

I'm one of those people who need to understand something new and interesting in its entirety. Until I do, I become obsessed with mining as much information as I can about whatever it may be.

So when I was recently found myself (somewhat obsessively) watching the news coverage of an art installation known as He Will Not Divide Us created by Shia LaBeouf, Nastja Sde Rnkk, and Luke Turner "as a show of resistance or insistence, opposition or optimism, guided by the spirit of each individual participant and the community" I found myself baffled as several protestors from the Right continuously and aggressively held pictures of a cartoon frog up to the camera lens.

The Protestors:

Me:

So, off to Google I went, where I then fell down a rabbit hole into the mystical realms of Wikipedia, Reddit, and the ever popular 4chan where I found myself waist-deep in the muddy trenches of hate surrounding "Pepe the Frog."

Let's start with the basics about Pepe:

The anthropomorphic frog was created in 2005 by Matt Furie for his comic blog on MySpace called Boy's Club. Pepe was shown urinating with pants down while saying, "Feels good man," which became his catchphrase and propelled him to quickly achieve popular meme status. By 2015, he even ranked number 6 "onDaily News and Analysis'list of the most important memes and was the most retweeted meme onTwitter."

Strangely, in 2016, the once innocent frog was co-opted by the alt-right with goal, according to Hillary Clinton's official campaign website, of turning him intoa "symbol associated withwhite supremacy."

I know. A green frog. I was confused, too. But stay with me here.

It seems that during Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Trump himself re-tweeted a Pepe drawing featuring his own likeness. Donald Trump, Jr. and political consultant Roger Stone then tweeted a parody of the movie poster forThe Expendables, calling it, instead, The Deplorables,in reference to Hillary Clinton's slip of the tongue during campaigning.

Each movie character was replaced with people from Trump's very alt-right side, including uber-controversial figure Milo Yiannopoulos and alt-right Twitter users didn't waste time grabbing the frog to use as their symbol.

In September of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)officially added Pepe to their hate symbol database.

According to their website:

"The Pepe the Frog character did not originally have racist or anti-Semitic connotations. Internet users appropriated the character and turned him into a meme, placing the frog in a variety of circumstances and saying many different things ...The majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted ...In recent years, with the growth of the 'alt right'segment of the white supremacist movement, a segment that draws some of its support from some of the above-mentioned Internet sites, the number of 'alt right'Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election ...

However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes."

Now the ADL hasteamed up with creator Matt Furie tocreate and promote a campaign to take back Pepe #SavePepe.

Furieshared the following thoughts:

We are in uncharted territory right now ... But I have to take some responsibility for him because hes like my kid or something ... Its the worst-case scenario for any artist to lose control of their work and eventually have it labeled like a swastika or a burning cross ... I had to step up and speak on the cartoon frogs behalf.

It's amazing how quickly the internet evolves, but this is the world in which we now live.

So, if you happen to see the green frog, be aware that you may possibly be reading something from an alt-right supporter, and keep that in mind before you reply or re-tweet.

(Looking at you, Kellyanne Conway!)

Read more:
The Unexpectedly Horrifying Meaning Behind "Pepe The Frog" - YourTango

The great Meme War of 2016, which pit the white supremacist alt-right against a left that often didn't realize there was a war going on, turned the innocent everyman meme Pepe the Frog into a Nazi hate symbol.

Now, with fears of a Meme War II on the horizon, the two political sides are fighting to control the narrative of Trash Dove, the purple bird that's being spammed all over Facebook this week.

Syd Weiler

And what at least one person wants it to be is the Pepe of the American left, a general symbol that can help progressives appeal to memeculture the way Pepe helped PresidentDonald Trump.

Facebook via 4chan /pol/

"Why does the left suck at meme magic?" asked one poster. Soon,they'd made plans to turn Trash Dove into an alt-right meme instead of a leftist one and started Photoshopping the bird with swastikas and other Nazi insignia.

It's even got a new name, "Pek," which takes a little bit of explaining. Last year, 4chan discovered the Egyptian god Kek, whose name happens to be the same as common 4chan slang for laughter or amusement. And Kek had the head of a frog. So, naturally, Pepe the Frog was the reincarnation of Kek, who became the patron god of the pro-Trump meme campaign. When Trump was elected, many shitposters credited "meme magic" for his victory.

Now the Trash Dove is being hailed as a potential reincarnation of Thoth, the bird-headed god. Previously, 4chan made the Thoth connection with a different, totally racist meme, Moon Man, but never mind that for now. Pek is here.

4chan

Like a lot of things on 4chan, it's hard to tell if this whole thing is satirical. The most likely case is that, like the white supremacist tendencies on the site, it started out as a joke but eventually turned real.

Posters on liberal Facebook groups are alarmed by the bird spammost of which is totally innocent, carried out by mainstream Facebook "normies"and have decided that any use of the bird is low-key fascist propaganda.

Facebook

Is Trash Dove a Nazi? Screengrab via Facebook

Quincy Frey satirized this outrage in a Medium postthat mocked the overreaction and panic over the alleged Nazification of Trash Dovebut also included a whole bunch of Nazi bird Photoshops. These images are all over /pol/, tooand it almost doesn't matter whether they're sincere at this point.

As soon as the Trump memers discovered that liberals were concerned about possible alt-right cooption of Trash Dove, they took the opportunity to "trigger" the left with the bird.

Previously, 4chan considered Trash Dove to be a cancerous "normie" memethat is, nothing more than annoyingbut as soon as their political opponents decided the bird was "alt-right," it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy and /pol/'s idea of a good joke.

Last year, Miles Klee argued on the Daily Dot that Pepe the Frog is not inherently a Nazi or fascisthe's an every-meme that people will always tie to the most controversial, edgy developments of the moment, from the Holocaust to 9/11 to the Trump campaign. After all, you can put a swastika on anything.

As Frey's satirical piece makes clear, the same thing is happening to Trash Dove, and calling it a "low-key Nazi symbol" is probably an exaggeration. Although some trolls may add Nazi iconography (or Make America Great Hats) to it, that's just a tactic to annoy liberals. The original headbanging pigeon is still just an image that some people love and many others are irritated by.

View original post here:
A meme war is raging over the future of Trash Dove - The Daily Dot