Pepe the Frog designated a hate symbol by Anti-Defamation League Jew bigots

[Jake]

(CNN)Beloved internet meme Pepe the Frog has gone through
various incarnations over the years, most of them innocuous and
amusing.

But recent appropriations of the smirking green frog as Adolf
Hitler, a Klansman and numerous racist caricatures have earned
him a spot in the Anti-Defamation League's database of hate
symbols.

"Once again, racists and haters have taken a popular Internet
meme and twisted it for their own purposes of spreading bigotry
and harassing users," Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO said in a
statement. "These anti-Semites have no shame. They are abusing
the image of a cartoon character, one that might at first seem
appealing, to harass and spread hatred on social media."

The designation does not apply to all Pepe memes because most of
them are not "bigoted" in nature, the ADL said. You'll likely
know one when you see one.

Feels good, man
It wasn't always this way for Pepe, who first appeared on the
internet in 2005 in artist Matt Furie's "Boy's Club" cartoons.
In 2008, a comic of Pepe with his pants at his ankles while
urinating, captioned "feels good, man," spread through online
community 4chan, according to KnowYourMeme.

His bemused smirk was made for the internet, and a meme was born.
Pepe was manipulated over time to capture the range of the human
experience, including Sad Frog, who was often paired with the
phrases" Not Good Man," "Feels Bad Man," or "You Will Never..."
to Smug Frog, Angry Pepe, Keith Haring Pepe, even supposedly
Rare Pepes.

A decade later he had solidified his place among "normies" in
mainstream internet circles, becoming one of the biggest memes
on Tumblr in 2015.

The good times couldn't last.

Feels bad, man

As the meme proliferated in venues such as 4chan, 8chan and
Reddit, criticized as a breeding grounds for all manner of
inflammatory imagery, a subset of Pepe memes came into being
that centered on racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted themes,
the ADL said.

The 2016 US presidential campaign exacerbated the phenomena as
white power movements came out to endorse Donald Trump, tra
drawing in Republican nominee Donald Trump.

After Hillary Clinton said most of Trump's supporters were in a
"basket of deplorables," Donald Trump Jr. shared an altered
version of the movie poster of "The Expendables" on Instagram.
It showed Pepe among Trump Senior and other conservative figures
labeled "The Deplorables."

The Clinton campaign fired back with a post, "Donald Trump, Pepe
the frog, and white supremacists: an explainer" on why "that
cartoon frog is more sinister than you might realize."

The internet responded with ridicule.

Not all Pepes are 'bigoted'

Context matters, though. Not all Pepes are sinister, the ADL
said.

"The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone
is racist or white supremacist," the group said.

"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."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/us/pepe-the-frog-hate-symbol-
trnd/?iid=ob_lockedrail_topeditorial