$PEPE Pepe started out super chill. He was created in the mid-2000s by an artist named Matt Furie in a comic called Boy’s Club. Early Pepe was basically a laid-back frog who said things like “feels good man.” Just vibing, zero drama.
Then the internet did what the internet does.
Pepe blew up as a meme around the 2010s. People started remixing him into everything: happy Pepe, sad Pepe, angry Pepe, smug Pepe, crying-at-3-a.m Pepe. He became a reaction image for basically any emotion you could have. If you felt it, there was probably a Pepe for it.
Things got messy later when some online groups used Pepe in political and edgy ways, which wasn’t what the original creator wanted at all. Matt Furie has been really clear that Pepe was meant to be positive and goofy, and he’s even worked to “reclaim” Pepe by making wholesome versions again.
today, Pepe’s kind of a shape-shifter meme:
-Sometimes he’s ironic
-Sometimes he’s wholesome
-Sometimes he’s just a funny green frog being relatable
Context matters a lot with Pepe. Same image can mean totally different things depending on where and how it’s used.
