Feels Good Man (2020) - full transcript

[CRICKETS CHIRPING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I always first start with
the eyeball like this.

And you got to leave a little
bit of space there for the goo.

And these little froggy eyelids.

It looks like sex
parts a little bit.

I've just always
been into drawing.

And it takes tons of time
to come up with a character

that you like enough to
draw over and over again.

It's just been kind of
a slow drip of frogs

throughout my entire life.



It's just one little
frog after another

after another after another.

And then, eventually,
it was Pepe.

It's a happy little frog.

What do people get wrong
about drawing Pepe?

Probably when they put Pepe
on the internet saying,

like, kill Jews.

Are you familiar with this
meme called Pepe the Frog?

For those who don't,
here's a picture.

Here's Pepe the Frog.

Have you seen me
on this frog meme?

I forget the name of it.

Many of you may remember Pepe
the Frog, the once innocent,

chill frog meme.



(SINGING) Saw a man today,
he led a big parade downtown.

Helicopter came.

Staff sergeants all came down.

It sounds like--

I bet 90% of your viewers
haven't heard of Pepe the Frog.

1 thought it was
a frog in a wig.

The white supremacist movement
has taken over Pepe the Frog.

(SINGING) 'Cause I've been
living in Hell, living in Hell

with you.

I've been living in
hell...Living in Hell with you.

We're here in the
Community Thrift store.

And it all started here.

Let's see what's back here.

I do get waves of nostalgia
for the youthful time in my 20s

working here, just hanging
out with my friends

and just riding a bike
around San Francisco.

So I basically just
want to be young again.

This is my old
office space here.

It used to be the
toy department.

This is where I
spent my days with--

[GIGGLING]

That tickles.

Guys like that.

1 would have literally a
mountain of toys every day,

and it was just
really inspiring.

It's like working
inside of a brain.

If 1 got caught up with my
work, I would just draw.

Every day would be like new
toys that would come in,

and I would draw them.

And so it was my
ideal job situation.

Matt was always drawing
that frog, forever, I swear.

That was his go-to
thing to draw.

So I've been seeing that
frog's face for as long

as I've known Matt.

[SNEEZING]

Ew.

[GIGGLING]

Excuse you.

Ew, ew, ew.

The first time I actually named
him Pepe was for this comic

that I did called Playtime.

I was just messing
around on Microsoft Paint

and came up with the Pepe
and Brett, two characters.

They did things like
go to raves and paint.

It just kind of
naturally developed.

And I just thought it'd be fun
to have four characters, kind

of like the Ninja Turtles.

It became Boy's Club.

A

Lot of the humor is
about post-college zone.

You don't quite know
what you're doing,

but you like drinking
and hanging out.

The four characters were just
reflections of my personality

and the personality
of my friends.

Landwolf, the party dog.

Andy was the jokester
of the group.

Brett liked to dance.

And then Pepe the
Frog was just kind of

like the little
brother in the group.

The better ll got to
know Matt, the more

the similarities I
saw with him and Pepe.

Even the way Pepe
looks, he kind of

looks like Matt a little bit.

Matt was a little bit different
from what most people would

consider a typical cartoonist.

I think it's more like this.

Button down shirt, nerd glasses.

He seemed like he
was like a cool guy.

And Boy's Club, it's one of
the funniest comics of, I

don't know, the last 10 years.

What's happening here is
Landwolf is passed out,

but that's how he passed out.

He didn't quite make
it onto the bed.

I don't know why, I thought
he was trying to jerk off

and he passed out while he was--

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

I guess it's open
for interpretation.

It is open for interpretation.

Landwolf, I think he
represents the kind

of hairy, gross roommate
that you have sometimes,

clogging the drains.

It just made me think of
our actual roommate, Chris.

It's issues.

We're talking about
these because they're

meant to be read in the
privacy of your own home.

[LAUGHTER]

I've never actually had to
explain any of this shit.

I met Matt at a
comics convention

where we were signing
next to each other.

I loved Matt's comics.

I grew up with an older
brother, so I already

had that sense of humor where
I liked boner jokes and barf

and farts.

[FARTING]

To me, it felt very accessible.

It's the sort of
masculinity where

you can be in your underwear
singing to Shaniah Twain.

[MUSIC - SHANIAH TWAIN, "MAN!

I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN"]

(SINGING) Oh, oh, oh.

Go totally crazy.

Forget I'm a lady.

Men's shirts, short skirts.

When I watched Seinfeld,
ll liked Kramer the best.

When I read Boy's Club,
ll like Landwolf the best.

I guess Pepe's is
more of an Elaine.

Elaine is great, but--

yeah, if Elaine had become
a symbol of the alt right,

1 would be like,
yeah, that's crazy.

That shouldn't be the case.

It seems incredibly random.

People were like,
this is the character

we're going to use
for the internet.

This is going to be the
mascot for the internet.

One day, he was doing Boy's
Club comics at my house.

I remember I was sitting
on Ayana's little love

seat in her tiny-ass apartment.

He said, can you stand over
there and bend over and make

it look like you're pulling
your pants down while you're

bending over so ll can draw you?

Toilets are hard to draw.

People pulling down their
pants is hard to draw.

So I kind of hunched
over pretended

like I was pulling
my pants down,

and he drew a little sketch.

Ended up being Pepe.

So that was my
butt, and my toilet.

So is Pepe's body
based on Ayanna?

Not the feet.

Whatever kind of weird stuff
stuck with me in childhood,

sometimes it ends
up in Boy's Club.

I remember when I
was in second grade

and I went to the bathroom
alongside my cousin David.

And he pulled his
pants all the way down

to go pee, underwear
and everything.

Seems like it would
feel really good.

So I wanted to make
a comic about that.

Feels good, man.

That was the frame
that started it all.

I just thought it was cool
that I can just draw a comic,

scan it in, and
put it on Myspace,

and then people would
see it instantly.

Back then, it was
newer territory.

And I liked the vibe
of Myspace a lot.

It was like we're inside
somebody's locker room

or something.

At the time, I had some friends
that were into exercise.

And they found online
a before and after shot

that would say,
"Feels good, man."

Thought it was really weird.

A lot of weightlifters
would be, like, oh, I just

finished a great workout.

Feels good, man.

And ll remember just
thinking, oh, that

can't be because of Pepe.

It's just some random accident.

The catchphrase
"Feels good, man"

started becoming more popular.

It would be a photo
of a cat or something,

and then it would say,
"Feels good, man."

Or there was one version of
it that said "Feels Goodman,"

with John Goodman's face.

It was pretty funny at the time.

When I would check my email,
every so often somebody

would send me a
link to Pepe being

in some kind of weird chatroom
or something like that.

I remember specifically
my dad sent me

a link to this kid
who made a Pepe song.

(SINGING) Hey Pepe, I heard
you pull your pants down all

the way to go pee.

Could you show me?

Feels good, man.

Feels good, man.

It was like this
big nerdy thing.

I was kind of interested in
it as a internet phenomenon,

but ll didn't really
think too much about it.

1 was just like,
ha-ha, whatever.

When it started to snowball
and Matt didn't seem to mind,

I was a little
like, that's weird.

I said, sue them.

Lawyer up.

Man, I'm an artist, so ll don't
like suing other artists.

He just was like, oh, yeah, man.

Just let them do what they want.

Using Pepe as a meme.

That's cool.

A meme.

1 didn't even know
what a meme was,

or ll don't even still know
if I'm saying that correctly.

But it was through Pepe that
I learned would have meme was.

It's hard to
remember what I first

thought when I
saw Pepe the Frog,

but I think I imagined
like, in my student days,

these guys hanging out with a
spliff and having a nice time.

And he was just rather
sort of hopeless and sweet,

and I just thought, oh.

Chick, chick, chick,
chick, chickens.

Come on.

The whole idea of memes comes
from Richard Dawkins' 1976

book The Selfish Gene.

Most of the book is about what
he called universal Darwinism,

which said all of biology
is driven by genes,

but culture is driven by memes.

He said, look around you,
and you'll see floating

about in the primeval
soup of culture

is information copied
by imitation from person

to person.

So that would include
chairs, trousers, hairstyles.

All of these things
are only here

because humans have copied
them, and the ones around us

are the winners in an
evolutionary battle.

And then, gradually, came the
concept of internet memes.

And people can easily see that
process happening with Pepe.

Pepe is a wonderful
example of a meme that

escaped out there
into the memosphere

and suffered all the things
you'd expect of a meme.

Pepe is just folds upon folds.

The Pepe technique is
to draw too many lines.

There's another fold and then
another fold, and these lumps.

And he looks really cracked
out, but that's the idea.

It's like steering
into that mistake.

He also symbolizes steering
into the mistake of staying

in your mom's basement.

I saw Boy's Club
around 2007 or so

when he was first posting
it on the internet.

And it just kept appearing
in message boards.

Feels good, man.

In that little story,
he's owning the fact

that he's this weird guy.

That moment of
owning your loserdom,

owning your weirdness,
is perfect 4chan ethics.

Christopher Poole, he
was 14 years old living

with his mom spending all his
time indoors on the internet.

And he created this crazy
monster in his basement.

Now, over seven million people
are using it, contributing over

700,000 posts per day.

And we've gone from
one board to 48 boards.

So 4chan, just the
way that it functioned

was super conducive
to creating memes.

The way 4chan works is that
it's a Darwinian competition

for attention.

So you have a post, and if the
post gets a lot of replies,

it floats to the top.

And if no one replies, it sinks
to the bottom and quickly dies.

It's a winning
and losing system,

and it's a lot
like a video game.

There were all of these
adolescent boys trying to own

each other in the competition.

And so it became this
culture of saying

the most offensive thing.

And so Pepe kind of melts
into that community.

And all of this stuff
that just exploded out

of the culture four
or five years later

were being invented there
by all these clever people.

And they were all anonymous.

On 4chan, you're talking
to another text box,

so you're free to express those
secret ideas that people have

that they don't feel comfortable
expressing in real life.

I posted Pepes all the time.

To not post Pepe would be
strange because it's just--

it's the meme.

Post.

Send.

Boom.

So there I am right there.

It's hard to say why Pepe
gained popularity so fast.

You could say it was just
an easily relatable image.

My own collection, I have
my reaction image folder

filled with Pepe and
all the derivatives.

The term was, "We
feel alone together."

That was their idea.

As it ages, it just
gets more desperate.

They would describe
themselves as NEET.

NEET stands for Not in
Education, Employment,

or Training.

The idea was that
they were trying

to find a word that
described their situation

for these masses of kids
who were just unemployed

or just dropped out of life.

I think the best thing would
be to start with a job.

No.

Yeah, absolutely
she needs a job.

No.

So 4chan really comes
to embody that culture

of checking out and living
in your mom's basement.

It started in 2003,
and it still exists.

So imagine people being
on their 10 years, it

becoming a lifestyle.

A lot of people are
talking that they

have super hot basement layers
where they get to NEET it up.

Well, basically, nobody's really
touching my game right now.

So got the primo couch bed.

And I just kick this
shit all over the place

because I just don't give
a fuck about anything.

And it's a life.

1 think I saw
images of Pepe first

in the fitness board of 4chan.

This frog was so prevalent.

What does Pepe mean to me?

What does he mean to me?

He's a frog.

He's a sad frog.

On 4chan, the
quote-unquote "sad frog"

became the most popular
image for displaying sadness.

There were other images that
would describe that feeling.

You had things like the
picture of Keanu Reeves sitting

on a bench, but maybe
he's just deep in thought.

That sad frog, you
knew what it was about.

Nothing else needed
to be said there.

Pepe the sad frog.

Pepe.

Pepe what?

The sad frog.

The sad frog?

Pepe the sad frog.

What's that?

It wasn't something that was
really circulated heavily

on Facebook or any of
that stuff at the time.

Pepe just felt uniquely 4chan.

Feels bad, man.

1 didn't know about
the Boy's Club

comic or anything like that.

I did not know who
Matt Furie was.

Even after ll learned
about Boy's Club,

I was like, oh, the
making of a Pepe comic.

Oh, that's cool.

That's the story.

It's about somewhere
in the future where

the mutants have taken over.

And they make new children.

I like this style of gun.

Yeah.

Are you actually the
guy that made Pepe?

Yeah, yeah.

But it must suck for you that
he has become hijacked by 4chan.

It definitely sucks, but
nothing's forever, right?

I'm just a spectator
to how things mutate

and evolve on the internet.

You can kind of see
everything as some big joke,

but it's kind of a window
into this dark place.

I'll draw you a little Pepe.

People on the internet
had their own characters

that Pepe was interacting with.

There's one where he's
interacting with this guy,

I think his name was Wojak.

I would see pictures
of Pepe hugging

this stark, white,
sad-looking guy.

And I was like, what is that?

They call him the Feels Guy,
or Wojack is the proper term.

He was for expressing
an unpleasant feeling.

I'd be sitting there and I'd be
tense from anxiety and like--

and being like that.

And then I'd go
on the board a bit

like, OK, these are my people.

We're all over the
world, but we all

have these feelings of anxiety
and everything together.

It's like a group
therapy on the internet.

Even when I was at work, we
had these security cameras.

I'd duck behind stack of
crates, quick just be like,

you dumb idiots.

Then I'd checked like
10, 15 minutes later,

and I'd see who's
replying to me.

And I would face an onslaught
of people just saying how I

was the most hideous man alive.

1 would wear that
as a badge of honor.

I'd be like, yes,
I'm a true 4chan guy.

I'm a true social reject.

I'm a true freak.

Yeah, you're darn tootin'.

I'm a latecomer
to Pepe, probably

because he's not my type.

I came to Pepe after
he had gone dark.

Pepe is a sad frog.

He's never happy.

He's just sort of miserable.

And I think for a huge
population, online and offline,

we're not really allowed to
express sorrow or sadness

or grief.

And this sad little frog arrives
online in the midst of the push

to commodify the internet.

What was going on at that
point is that everybody

was super damn positive.

People were suddenly able
to make cash money out

of their image,
which meant that they

had to be totally rad, happy,
fitspo, my best self thing.

Then in drops Pepe,
ripe for the taking.

Hey, guys.

It's me, Louie.

Today, I'm going to be
doing a Pepe transformation.

Pepe starts to percolate into
another population we've got,

a lot more women,
a lot of girls.

And they're starting
to own Pepe.

Hey, guys.

I just googled what
a meme was, and I

think I'm in love with memes.

Pepe is the best.

You draw the head, which
is just like a butt.

Things began to spiral
really out of control.

A couple of celebrities,
Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry,

they had posted on Instagram
a couple of Pepe images.

A lot of people see
it for the first time.

They're wondering,
who is this frog?

What is this frog?

What is this?

I want to see some more of that.

They start making a
migration over to 4chan.

Young women in particular
download Pepe images,

using them for their own likes.

And that was seen is despicable.

I love Pepe so much.

The true Pepe is this Pepe.

Pepe's green skin
is so beautiful.

It's different from frog.

Pepe green is special.

It seemed to me like invasion.

You had people that
would come on and say,

why are you virgin losers here?

Where is the Pepe pictures at?

Where they at?

I strive to be Pepe.

Just kidding.

1 hate Pepe the frog,
whatever his name is.

Pe-- Pepe.

Either way, he's stupid.

And I don't really
know why I made

my face green to prove the
point that I hate Pepe,

but let me prove it by
saying, I hate you, Pepe.

I'm going to chop your head
off, your little froggy

head off, like this.

It was serious to
a lot of people.

This is the symbol
of our culture.

And it really was turning
into a total Pepe fest.

Nice.

Pepe was just really
turning into a thing.

And my buddy Skinner
was like, hey,

you should do a clothing line.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[WORDLESS SINGING]

It was just kind of funny
to make something official

out of something that's so
bootlegged on the internet.

I drew all these goofy-ass
Pepes that were based on just

whatever random nonsense was
out there on the internet.

I like this one with
the little cigarette.

This one is particularly weird.

And this one is just--

I like that.

That's a very
stripped down Pepe.

It's a sad frog golf shirt.

You can have a pasta meal with
your family wearing this one.

Pepe was a famous meme.

And my friend Jay, he
got a tattoo gun he just

had set up in his kitchen.

And so one night, I think was
just completely spontaneous,

we were just like, oh,
let's get Pepe tattoos.

Just very little thought
goes into this at all.

Because we just thought it was
funny to have a Pepe tattoo.

And Matt was there, so it was
like a tribute to my friend.

1 didn't know at the time, but
I got like below my sleeve here.

That would come back to bite me.

As the Pepe defense was
building to try and steer people

away from using Pepe for
their own normie usage,

that spawned a lot of
angry, raging Pepes.

But then that
fateful day occurred

where there was a YouTube
video of screaming frogs.

Say something for the camera.

Look at that thing
blow up like a balloon.

[SCREECHING]

They have a high-pitched scream,
which sounded a lot like,

"Ree!"

[SCREECHING]

And it became this battle cry.

There'd be somebody who would
be coming in from Instagram,

out themselves as maybe
a sex-haver or a woman,

neurotypical, socially
well-adjusted person.

Once you get that seed
planted in the head of, like,

the popular kids and
look how they're living

and look at you--

you're this slug.

All you normies have been
bullying us our whole lives.

I'll never be one of
you disgusting normies.

Fuck normies.

[SCREAMING]

These were a group
of disempowered men

who had retreated
into fantasy worlds.

[GROWLING]

That was their last place
of retreat, in a sense.

And so having women
there was what

they didn't want,
because that was a symbol

of their defeat in real life.

Ursula.

Hey.

Is that Twilight Sparkle?

Mm-hmm.

Is that her name?

Yeah.

She's like, Ursula,
I'm going to help you.

Aww.

That's so cute.

That one says, a pocket mouse
sleeps safely in its nest.

That's so cute.

It's a little mouse.

People would just email me
fucked up pictures of Pepe.

And it didn't really shock me.

I would be more shocked by
people actually expressing

some form of cuteness or love.

This other stuff
is just garbage.

I think a weird thing about
American culture in general

is we do kind of
celebrate garbage,

and we also produce a hell
of a lot of physical garbage.

So it's just like
fucking garbage world.

I was definitely
conscious of not wanting

to be remembered as the
artist that did Boy's Club,

so I just wanted to
keep doing other stuff.

There's no connection
between this frog and Pepe

other than they kind of
look like one another.

But this is just another
frog in a different place.

I decided to do a whole kids
book that was totally wordless.

It follows the life of
this frog and his pet rat.

Live in their little
mushroom house.

Their travels on
the back of a bike.

They wake up at nighttime and
go exploring through the forest

and end up surfing
on some dolphins

and swimming and
going underground.

I just really went for that
childlike wonder with this one.

The Night Riders, it's a work
of highly skilled craftsmanship.

Took him almost a
year to make it.

1 told him I saw that
he had that in him,

he had a Where the
Wild Things Are in him.

I just knew it.

We were working on
The Night Riders

before all this insane Pepe
stuff started to happen.

Pepe is really just the tip of
the iceberg for the kind of art

that Matt's capable of making.

How come the dragon
doesn't have wings?

It's more of a land dragon
than a dragon of the air

or a dragon of the sea.

So he's a land dragon.

The characters are
of different species,

but they seem like friends
from a neighborhood.

We can tell they
love each other,

and the book is build toward
a bunch of nocturnal animals

experiencing a sunrise.

The end.

Pepe had escaped, and
he was roaming around.

And it was fun for a while,
until it wasn't any more.

On 4chan, whenever they
thought, quote-unquote,

"normies"” or
outsiders, other sites,

were stealing their memes,
they would try and make them

as offensive as possible.

It's like a classic
punk response.

You're literally
armored, like a punk.

And you're like,
it's so offensive,

it can't be co-opted.

So they put him next to the
trade towers disintegrating.

They put swastikas all
over him and Nazify Pepe.

And it snowballs.

Back then, it was just the most
offensive thing you could do.

But it now reads
as a weird prologue

to when the irony
kind of melted away.

There are people on
these platforms who

believe that because
you've couched

your intention in a joke
that you can disavow it--

That's right.

--When people come asking.

That's exactly right.

So you create this
ambiguity so there's

no way for you to mean
what you really mean ever.

Yeah.

1 think what's
appealing about Pepe

is that he combines this
impossible mixture of innocence

and evil.

He has this kind
of knowing smile

while he's performing acts
that are really atrocious.

It sort of fulfills
the idea that we

can say these terrible
things and just mean them

as jokes all the time.

They're always just
jokes all the time,

and you can't prove otherwise.

We're just a bunch of
kids in our underwear.

It's harmless.

No one really means it.

The problem, I
think, is that it's

really demonstrable in the worst
cases that this isn't funny.

It's not funny when people die.

[INAUDIBLE] in progress.

We got another gun shot victim
at [INAUDIBLE] shots fired.

Shots fired.

A black car pulls up and stops,
and he rolls down the window.

I just saw four gunshots.

A Friday night rampage in
this bustling college town.

After two gun battles
with police and a chase,

seven people were dead.

22-year-old Elliot Rodger
believed to be the gunman.

Tonight, investigators are
poring over videos Rodger

posted online.

There was this
intense pain that you

could see where he was
really divorced from reality.

He did the shooting spree
in a car, a fancy car

that his parents had bought for
him to boost his confidence.

Didn't even make an
effort to talk to anybody.

He was so closed off.

And it was like, when
he's sitting there,

you can just tell he's just
thinking these thoughts

in his head the entire time.

He's just talking to himself.

I came onto 4chan that day.

People in this environment
were starting get whipped up.

And they were like,
yeah, that's right.

You showed them who's boss.

He went out there, he stood up
for being the virgin with rage.

The very first picture of
Elliot Rodger that I saved

was a picture of this sort
of semi transparent sobbing

woman, and then three
or four Pepes with guns.

It was one of the
very first ones

that took Elliot and put it
into sort of like a context.

People started drawing Pepes
riding around in a BMWs

with Elliot Rodger.

Yeah, I did get a little
bit energized by it.

It was just like,
maybe society does need

to get flipped on its head.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi.

Elliot Rodger here.

I don't condone violence.

I'm not a violence condoner.

But he set me off in the path
that made me who I am today,

and I have to acknowledge that.

On 4chan, you see
something totally new

called the beta male
uprising, the beta uprising.

The idea would be
that all of them

would run out of
their mom's basements

and start shooting people.

And of course, it's a way
of making fun of themselves.

It's always coded
in guarded irony.

But of course, behind the
irony is the seriousness.

Why are you talking about that?

It's because that's an issue
that resonates with you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Uprise.

Welcome to your demise.

Pepe then becomes the symbol.

You see him holding the gun.

It's the classic
response from 4chan,

which is the most nihilistic
and despairing and cynical,

where anyone wants to kill
themselves or do something

awful or do something
anti-social,

making that screen
illusion real in some way,

they're like, yeah, go for it.

Philadelphia area colleges
have all warned students

to be extra cautious tomorrow.

This is the thread
that was posted

on 4chan, a message board
where everyone is anonymous.

It was posted last
Friday, the day

after the shooting in Oregon.

It phrases the gunman
as a fellow member

of the beta rebellion.

The post on 4chan
uses a profile picture

of what appears to be the
Grinch in a mask holding a gun.

That same picture was
used in a post the day

before the Oregon massacre.

We see it's not just the
memes generate the violence.

It's that the violence
becomes a meme.

But it's just a joke, right?

It's just a stupid frog.

If you had had a victory
over the normies,

striking back at
the oppressors, it

was seen as too enthusiastic to
post a big grinning, laughing,

ha-ha-ha.

So when the smug
Pepe came out, it

was groundbreaking in a way
that is maybe hard to explain.

It was the most
succinct, perfect face.

Then the hand up.

It had the perfect
silly look to it, crude,

like holding back
laughter but enjoying

the suffering of others.

It was the perfect
trolling accessory.

The way he's redrawn
with his thumb

up like this like really smug--

Yeah.

That tone is so ugly.

It's used to imply being
above a conversation

that people are trying
to have about kindness.

Trump was seen as
the personification

of the smug Pepe meme.

When he was announcing
that he was going to run,

every news story is
they don't like him.

People in his own party,
they don't like him.

And people in the other party,
they really don't like him.

It was like, oh,
this is perfect.

He's making everybody upset.

A really interesting
time in 4chan

is Trump's initial
announcement that he

is running for president.

If you look at the 4chan
threads, before Trump's speech,

it was fairly skeptical.

But then they saw a lot of
these things in his rhetoric

that they liked.

They saw nationalism.

They saw white nationalism.

And almost immediately,
you'll see people being like,

can we get a Pepe with
Donald Trump hair?

I want to start
circulating this.

And that happened--
that's within hours.

I think that President Trump
is a real-life version of Pepe

in the ability to
elicit a reaction

and to get attention, to express
and to capture people's hopes

and fears.

I was formerly the director
of strategy and data

for the Trump campaign, so
I know as much if not more

about how to use voter data than
anybody else in the country.

During the campaign, there
was an effort by 4chan

to get other people to support
the president by creating

memes, and then
sharing them to, say,

normies to try to motivate them
to support President Trump.

The inside terminology for
this was the great meme war.

It gave people who
had never really been

involved in politics
before a way in.

The best memes that you see,
the most effective ones,

are just some person
who has no power at all.

They have no influence.

They have no money.

They have no connections.

But if they can
make one good meme,

they can take off and go viral.

And then when you
hyper charge it

by having the
President retweet it,

you felt like you were
part of this rebel group,

this insurgency
that was completely

unpredictable and from--

where no one would
have ever expected it.

How does an image like this end
up on Donald Trump's Twitter

account?

4chan supported Trump
for a mix of reasons.

Some of it I think was
this nihilistic idea

that Trump was a wrecking
ball and that they

wanted to embarrass
people by electing him.

And so when Trump retweeted
himself depicted as Pepe,

it was like this
watershed moment.

This is Donald Trump a
co-opting the idea of himself

substituted as Pepe.

It was so transgressive,
so anti-PC.

To most of the voters out
there, it just seem kind of odd.

But if you were part
of the community that

has been spending years and
years and years using Pepe,

suddenly a little antenna goes
up and you pick up a signal

and say, wow, maybe
this guy's right for us.

There was always magic going
on in any political campaign.

And so what happened when
Pepe the Frog suddenly

became, in effect, Donald
Trump's invisible running mate

was that a magical force
had entered the picture.

And it was a wild card.

A meme can become the anchor,
the seed, if you will,

around which a group of
like-minded people can gather

and toward which they
can focus their energy.

That's a basic
tool of meme magic.

And that's one of the things we
saw during the 2016 election.

The way that magic
was used on the chans

was they focused on building
up a series of hyper-sigils

of images like Pepe
the Frog, and piled

into those images all of their
hopes and all of their energy,

their emotional focus of seeing
Donald Trump in the White

House.

You ended up with a lot
of people on the chans

just going, wow,
1 could do this.

This is not Republicanism
as we have known it.

These are racist ideas,
race-baiting ideas,

anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant,
anti-women, all key tenets

making up an emerging
racist ideology

known as the alt-right.

Pepe!

Now, alt-right is short
for alternative right.

The Wall Street
Journal describes it

as a loose racist ideology
known as the alt-right.

Pepe!

Pepe!

And to most people, that was
a totally inexplicable thing

at the moment.

Must be totally random.

To the white supremacist,
anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi right

in this country, that
was a moment of triumph.

Suddenly, Pepe the meme,
the most silliest piece

of meaningless culture, was sort
of passing through the screen.

It was like the
dream of the troll,

making the internet real.

It was becoming weird
to have this tattoo.

Here to get me involved
in your nightmare world?

Mm-hmm.

That's good.

We're here to exploit you.

Is this-- this better
be about Landwolf.

Watch your head.

Please don't kick my
cat, if you can help it.

I think it's funny
that Chris got the Pepe

tattooed on his arm, and he's
like, I have to hide it now.

Somebody at Subway thought
I was a white power dude.

[LAUGHTER]

Everybody's actually
very-- everybody

was very excited about Pepe.

They were like, oh, wow,
Pepe's this awesome meme, dude.

Pepe rules.

Wow, you made Pepe?

I was all proud of myself,
strutting down the street.

Now people just
throw rocks at you.

That's the guy who created Pepe.

You're not strutting
anymore, are you, sicko?

Now I'm like just
slithering down

the street in a pool of
my own waste or something.

Whoa.

Like a slug lord.

Like just a slurping slimeball.

But I really do feel like
this would only happen to you.

I interviewed Matt
Furie in September 2016

for the Atlantic.

My impression of Furie was that
he was very well-intentioned

but somewhat naive about the
extent to which this symbol had

been appropriated
by the far right.

Pepe is a white
nationalist symbol.

Increasingly being used
by white supremacists.

Something of a mascot
of the alt-right.

Defining the alt-right is
somewhat easier these days.

But in around 2016,
it encompassed a lot

of people who were ideologically
opposed to the left,

but not necessarily
united on every issue.

And then you had people
like Richard Spencer, who

were overt white nationalists.

It's going to involve Pepe.

It's going to involve
unleashing a little chaos.

For the alt-right, Pepe
allows them to pretend

that they're kidding.

They're not kidding.

What they want is for you to
be both scared by the threat

and be mocked for being
scared in the first place.

The point is to cause that
kind of psychic anguish,

and they draw a great deal
of pleasure from that.

Basically, alt-right
is a big tent,

or rather a big rock under which
creeps a diverse assortment

of paleoconservatives,
men's rights misogynists--

I remember I went to
a taping of Sam Bee,

and she had a segment
about Pepe the Frog.

And I got to meet
her after the taping.

--Cyber-bullies, and good
old-fashion neo-Nazis.

And I was like, you
know, Pepe was actually

created by a friend of mine,
and he's a really sweet artist.

And it doesn't mean this thing
that it transformed into.

And she was just like, OK.

The alt-right's use of
Pepe just drowned out

any other visual interpretation.

Trump's former campaign
chair, Steve Bannon,

said the Democrats are
not the opposition party,

the media is the
opposition party.

And how do you beat the media?

You flood the zone with shit.

Well, these people are
flooding the zone with shit

so that you don't know
what's real or what's not.

Quite frankly, I've
been to these events.

Wasn't even real.

Oh, no.

They're just Jewish actors,
a lot of the KKK guys

with their hats off.

Literally looks like
the cast of Seinfeld.

A conspiracy theorists
like Alex Jones

appeals to Trump because one of
Trump's major political tools

is forcing people to reject
objective reality in favor

of his version of reality.

Well, Donald Trump,
let me say this,

you are the leading
presidential front

runner with the Republicans,
gaining a huge lead

as you don't back down.

But I've got to just--

And the point of it is to
obliterate objective truth.

Fake news!

Fuck CNN!

Fuck CNN!

Trump frames his language in
terms of winners and losers.

Are you sick of fucking winning?

No!

What happens when that
mindset is adopted

by people on the bottom?

Instead of thinking of society
as where everyone's equal

and we're all lifting
ourselves up together,

you think the world
is a hierarchy.

And the only way you're
going to get to the top

is by displacing someone else.

Then you start getting
these ideas like,

well, maybe I'm at the bottom
because this group of people

has snuck their way to the top.

They probably cheated
their way up there.

And so then you get these
elaborate conspiracies about,

like, oh, well, the
Jews run the media.

Immigrants, they're the problem.

Build the wall!

Fuck those dirty beaners.

Build the wall.

We're not giving in.

We're not going away.

And we're giving them a big,
giant, red, white, and blue

middle finger!

[CHEERING]

So then it started
to get strange.

Somebody on the chans,
nobody knows who,

found an ancient Egyptian
frog god whose name was Kek.

He looked like an
anthropomorphic figure

with a frog's head,
rather like Pepe.

Obviously, that
had to be shared.

And the chans went ape.

The reason why this
caught on is that Kek

is a bit of gamer slang.

For complicated reasons,
where we say, ha-ha-ha,

in certain gaming circles,
you say, kek-kek-kek.

Trumpeter is taking the Hill.

The nation of Kek,
Kekistan taking the Hill.

They come up with
this idea of Kekistan,

of a kind of promised
land for Pepes.

And any time you
have these ideas

of ethnic homelands and
tribalist blood and soil,

it automatically
seems to cluster

in with the worst exercises
in human depravity.

So all I need to do is
just put on the mask.

Put on the mask.

There had been rumors
flying on the chans

that Hillary Clinton was
actually seriously ill.

And a great many chaos
magicians magicians

were focusing their magical
work on one goal, which was

making her collapse in public.

There's a thing that people talk
about in occult circles called

the TSW moment.

TSW-- the polite version
is This Stuff Works.

The chans went through
their TSW moment.

Hillary Clinton collapsed and
had to be hauled into the SUV

by other people.

1 honestly think, at that
point, if Donald Trump had

asked the habitues of the
chans to walk into the ocean,

they would have done it.

To just be grossly
generalistic, you

could put half of
Trump supporters

into what I call the
basket of deplorables.

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

They're racist, sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic,

Islamophobic.

Hillary Clinton then
released an explainer

explaining that Pepe
was a hate symbol

and that he symbolized
the alt-right.

And through these
associations, it really

made Trump look like a neo-Nazi.

But it made her also
look a little clueless.

The idea that she was
denouncing a cartoon frog

was delightful to 4chan,
delightful to the alt-right.

It was the best thing that
could have happened for them.

It certainly galvanized people
who thought, hey, I really

dig Pepe, and she just
launched an attack on me

and called me a Nazi.

Ladies and gentlemen, the
battle has just begun,

and we are ready.

I think that that
just solidified it.

Once you start deeming
something as a hate symbol,

it does kind of become that.

A popular cartoon
character turned

internet meme,
Pepe the Frog, has

been added to the
Anti-Defamation League's

database of hate symbols.

In a press release,
the organization

wrote the character
had been, quote,

"used by haters on
social media to suggest

racist, anti-Semitic,
or other bigoted

notions as a hate symbol."

Matt's name was in the
description about it

on the website.

It's like a nightmare.

He's thinking, I've worked
my whole life as an artist,

and now I'm going
to be lumped in

with this weird new swastika?

Matt Furie put out a statement
to the Associated Press.

He said he was horrified
to see his creation become

a mascot for the
alt-right fringe movement.

I don't want to be
associated with this.

I'm trying to write
children's books.

The nature of media
and politics is stuff

that I've been trying to
escape from my entire life

as an artist.

I don't give a shit
about any of that stuff.

And then I got pulled
into it just because I'm

on a hate symbol database list
now, and it pissed me off.

As the news was going on
that this internet frog has

been marked as a
hate symbol, that's

when I got the phone
call from our buyer.

They pulled it right away.

So we have about
3,000 items that

were going to go into
580 stores across the US,

and now it's in my garage.

These were probably
like $15 each to make.

If you think of $15 times
3,000, it's pretty crazy.

Yeah.

It's $45,000.

We didn't want to
give it to Goodwill.

We didn't want to
sell it ourselves

because we were afraid white
supremacists would wear it.

And then what is that
worth versus putting out

a hate symbol?

And I'm sure you
feel the same way.

A lot of the merchandise ended
up having to be destroyed.

Yeah.

Now that's kind of the
least of my worries.

I know.

He was a dummy.

He just let his character
get away from him,

and now this shit happen.

Matt's just like most of
us, a poor cartooning loser.

I was suggesting that he
sue the Anti-Defamation

League for defamation.

I'm just trying to be positive.

Not everybody has a platform to
talk about this kind of stuff.

I teamed up with the ADL
to just try to offer people

some creative solutions.

[APPLAUSE]

Hi, everybody.

So what we're
trying to do now is

to start a save Pepe campaign.

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

I invite everybody to draw their
own peaceful version of Pepe

and share it on social
media with #SavePepe.

Can we turn something that's
become a recognized hate symbol

into a recognized love symbol?

It was really funny, but
it was also really lovely.

1 tweeted about it.

I tried to help.

Yeah, I drew a Pepe.

Part of the Save Pepe campaign.

I'm like, damn, he's going
through a situation that

isn't right, and I
want to help him out.

Does that look like Pepe?

[LAUGHTER]

I've never drawn
Pepe before, but I

figured I'm going to do
whatever ll can to help

because I'm such a big fan.

So I'm butchering Pepe here,
but something like that.

In Matt's work, I
can feel his love

for nature and the universe.

I was like, oh, yeah, Matt's
my buddy, and I like Pepe,

so I just--

I made a peace frog Pepe.

Does that look like Pepe?

[LAUGHTER]

It's getting less
and less like Pepe.

I've been working on it
for about a month now.

I've gotten about 500 and
counting brand-new peace Pepes.

My goal with this is to
eventually start something

that I'd like to call the
Peace Pepe Database of Love.

My whole thing is just
to focus on positive

and just keep being creative.

The attempt by Matt Furie
to wrest control over Pepe--

it seems like he understands
the internet about as well

as Hillary Clinton does.

Maybe if the original
artwork wasn't

so pedestrian and basic that an
eight-year-old can draw Pepe,

a scribbling that was improved
upon by others, that was given

meaning that it
never had before,

I would just
encourage Matt to just

be glad to have been a small
part of a very big thing.

Art is supposed
to be therapeutic.

So before Trump
got elected, I just

did this kind of
nightmare scenario of Pepe

slowly morphing into Donald
Trump and then into a monster,

and then being trapped
inside the monster's mouth,

as you can see.

And then the threat
of nuclear war.

This is the new American moment.

This is like Martin Luther
King, "I Have a Dream" speech.

It's like Washington
crossing the Delaware.

(SINGING) "We are the
champions, my friend"

We were all ecstatic.

Donald Trump, he wasn't
supposed to be there.

We all felt like the memeing had
played a part in the election.

The internet's joke kind
of came to fruition.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The chaotic scene just blocks
outside the secure area

of the inauguration
and parade route.

Are you the hipster
version of the neo-Nazi--

What?

--Movement?

What is your little frog?

It's-- Pepe has become
kind of a symbol--

After the election,
Matt just came to me

and he said, hey,
I'm going to draw

a comic strip with Pepe in
it, and I'm going to kill him.

The Pepe thing was so out
of control at that point,

and whatever Pepe meant
to all these other people

didn't mean the
same thing to me.

So ll just killed him.

I just thought it'd be funny
to do a comic strip where all

the boys are at his funeral.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) Your picture
is still on my wall.

On my wall.

The colors are bright,
bright as ever.

The red is strong.

The blue is pure.

Some things last a long time.

Some things last a long time.

I didn't think it would
get noticed or anything.

I'm sure you recognize
the cartoon character Pepe

the Frog.

Well, he won't be
around for much longer

because his creator has
decided to kill him off.

A cartoon frog died
on the internet.

His name was Pepe.

It seemed like every
time he drew Pepe,

he would get hounded
by reporters.

He just hated it.

When I had first seen Matt's
death of Pepe a comic,

I was honestly a bit sad.

But the Pepe we see on
4chan now has been so far

removed from the
original that the Pepe

Matt was killing was his own.

The burden of this
weird Pepe shit

was starting to make me
feel anxious and weird.

Maybe it is whatever
people say it is.

I can't control it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) "... harnessing
the power that's inside.

RARE PEPE!"

Owning a rare Pepe
is about being alpha.

It's about having dank,
rare Pepes nobody else has.

And it's about, how do we
get to the moon in a Lambo?

OK, let's pull it up.

I'm in these crypto forums,
and for the longest time,

these guys would
talk about Pepe cash.

Some huge guys, like seven-,
eight-figure portfolio crypto

guys.

And I look at the
website, and I'm

like, what the fuck
are they talking about?

What is it?

Sol actually am a
Pepe cash millionaire.

How many million is that?

Is that $363 million?

$363 million internet
Pepe, and ll like that.

This has been
rechristened the SS Rare

Pepe, which I bought with Pepe
cash, and now I live on it.

If you want to explain
the rare Pepe economy,

imagine a few dozen geeks on
the internet came up with a way

to trade memes off 4chan and
lock them into ownership.

There's some Pepes that
are in superhero knockoffs,

so Iron Man Pepes,
Spiderman Pepes.

Some people's heroes are
more political in nature.

Trump Pepe, which is awesome
because he's make crypto great

again, whether you
like it or not.

It's much different than comic
books or even collectible

baseball cards because it exists
as math on the internet first,

and then later you can
print a physical copy of it.

This is a physical card.

This is worthless.

This is the thing that's
worth hundreds of thousands

of dollars.

So I was going to this
digital arts conference

called Rare AF, Rare As Fuck.

Luckily for me, they're
having the world's

first rare Pepe auction.

Rare Pepe after rare Pepe after
beautiful rare Pepe passing by,

and then finally
gets to the end.

It's the ultimate rare
Pepe, the Homer Pepe.

And I'm like, I'm
getting this thing.

Selling for 200.

Homer.

200.

People start placing bids--

20,000, 30,000, 40,000
100,000 Pepe cash.

200,000 Pepe cash.

75.

270.

It starts getting
so crazy, and it

gets to 350,000 Pepe cash,
which is about $39,000 US.

350 going once, going twice.

Sold.

[CHEERING]

What inspired you to pay
$39,000 US for a rare Pepe?

I was really excited about Pepe.

OK.

So this is Homer Pepe, currently
the world's most valuable

rare Pepe.

Now, what makes this
Pepe worth so much,

it's the only one
with a misprint.

Wait a minute.

Wait a mint.

Wait a mint.

That's value.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) I will
Lambo across the land,

searching far and wide.

Each rare Pepe to understand
the power that's inside.

Rare Pepe!

You're Matt, right?

Thank you for creating
our whole line of work.

You have gainfully
employed all of us.

[LAUGHTER]

So what are you
guys talking about?

We're all working the general
realm of weird online behavior

from a scientific perspective.

We have security
people from the US.

We have cryptographers
from the UK.

We have systems people
from mainland Europe.

And we take a large
scale analysis of data,

getting a quantitative
understanding of hate speech

throughout the web.

This is [INAUDIBLE]

We had to figure out a
way to be able to measure

this stuff at large
scale, and we ended up

building a system
to measure memes.

Just to give you an
idea of the scale, Matt,

so we had over a billion
posts from Twitter, Reddit,

Ipol/ and Gab.

And we examined 160
million some odd images.

So obviously, these
weren't all Pepes,

but the scale of
this data is huge.

This was only for a year.

Interesting.

There's a variety
of different memes,

but there tends to be a Pepe
variant in every single one

of these clusters.

So you pick a random meme, and
Pepe has been inserted into it

in some way, shape, or form.

In a lot of ways, Pepe
becomes an entry point

to radicalization.

That's a very scary
thing to think about.

Do you feel any
personal responsibility

for the bad stuff that
has come out of this?

You shouldn't, but we're humans.

We feel guilt for things that
we shouldn't feel guilt for.

Maybe I could have been
more proactive earlier

on to try to control it.

To the question of,
can you get Pepe back,

the reality is that there's
160 million memes, essentially,

in a year that we collected.

Not all Pepes, again, but
a good chunk of them are.

That's tough genie to
put back in the bottle.

1 wish you luck.

I do, sincerely.

Sol try to stay positive.

But to be honest,
I've gotten trolled.

Somebody sent me this.

I don't take it
personally, even though I'm

having my head decapitated.

It is what it is.

It's not only
wearing on my spirit,

but it's wearing on my
drive to be creative.

It did manifest anxieties
that I have yet to unravel.

He just slept a lot
and, honestly, it

was hard to talk to him.

I let them know I was
there for him and all that,

but there wasn't anything
anyone could really do.

Tonight, a Denton ISD
assistant principal

is coming under fire for
writing a new children's book,

a book some say is
politically motivated.

I'm using Pepe just as a
lighthearted way of expressing

maybe some conservative values.

If you love America,
you're going

to love this book for sure.

When Matt found out that
there was a Islamophobic

racist children's book starring
Pepe coming out on Amazon,

he was so upset.

And that's when he kind
of freaked out about it.

It was like the last straw.

It's like hell, man.

If you want to escape
hell, you can't ignore it.

You almost have to go
to the center of it.

It is not very often that nerdy
intellectual property lawyers

get asked to fight
the alt-right.

But when we do, we're ready.

I have a whole team of lawyers
that are working with me pro

bono and have
really empowered me

to feel like I do have
some say in all this.

He really wanted to prevent the
digital release of the book.

He saw it was in fact a
not so veiled reference

to a lot of alt-right themes.

We found out who
was publishing it

and explained that Matt Furie
own the copyright to Pepe

and that we were prepared to
enforce his rights in court.

The Adventures of Pepe and
Pete, the electronic version

was never published.

But the issue here is, when
you shut down one person,

others pop up.

I'm a compassionate guy,
and I'm a sensitive guy.

But being able to work
with a team of lawyers

has given me strength to
shut these assholes up.

You've been sued by frog, bro.

Do you even know this yet?

No.

It's all over--

Surprise.

--The internet.

Surprise, motherfucker.

You got sued by a frog.

You've been sued by
a fucking frog, dude,

a conspiracy frog named Pepe.

We did sell a poster
that a listener made

titled Make America
Great Again that

had a bunch of images
of symbols that were

popular during the campaign.

We talked to our trademark
lawyers, and they said,

Mr. Jones, this is so outrageous
against the First Amendment.

It is insane.

This is cockamamie balderdash.

He was selling a
poster with Pepe on it

with a bunch of douche
bags, and I just

didn't want him to
sell the poster.

The problem isn't the
drawing or making of the art.

You can do that.

It's just when you mass
produce it and sell it.

That's when it gets
into a stickier area.

He's like, yeah, the
man's going to stop us.

He just jacked up the
price of the poster

and then offered to sign them.

I'm trying to free
Pepe the Frog.

And I'm either going
to succeed, or I'll

be destroyed in the process.

But that's OK.

I actually don't know
many people on here.

Is that Trump too?

Yeah.

There's two Trumps.

So it's like having two
Trumps in the same poster?

Is that legal?

Well, there's going to be
Joe Armstrong from Green Day.

And there's Marsha
from The Brady Bunch.

There's Billy Idol.

Billy Idol.

And there is Courtney Love.

[LAUGHTER]

A lot of times, I'm cutting
people's hair for court

where they're in trouble.

Yeah, I'm not in too--

I'm not in any trouble.

It's all just weird situations.

Yeah, about this notorious
character named Pepe the Frog.

Have you ever heard of it?

Yeah, I actually have.

My kids have too.

Oh, Yeah?

This the guy, Pepe?

Yeah, that guy right there.

So the guy Matt,
do you know him?

That's me.

That who you got to
go to court with?

Oh, no, no, no.

That's me.

1 am Matt.

Oh, you're Matt.

Yeah.

Oh.

I don't know what this guy's
doing, this Furie fellow.

But I've agreed to be deposed
for the Pepe the Frog deal.

Sir, would you raise your
right hand to be sworn?

Do you solemnly
state the testimony

you're about to give will be
the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth?

1 do.

I don't like the frog.

I don't like this whole thing.

But I've got to stand up
for the First Amendment.

Let's say this frog is
triggering for me now.

1 hate Pepe.

Videotaped deposition of
Matt Furie in the matter

of Matt Furie versus
Infowars and Free Speech LLC.

So from 2001 to 2007, you
had this carefree, part-time,

knucklehead life.

1 still have that.

Excellent.

What did you do to prepare
for today's deposition?

Really nothing.

So how did you pick
the name Pepe the Frog?

It sounded like pee-pee.

To go pee-pee.

So it is a cartoon frog, right?

Yes, it's a cartoon frog.

It has round lips, right?

1 wouldn't call it round lips.

More tubular.

Tubular lips.

1 thought ll had some
Kind of zen-like grip.

He kind of did a good
cop, bad cop thing on me.

He was like, so you like
Beavis and Butthead?

Do you watch Ren and Stimpy?

Yes.

But then he was
like, let's get him.

49,

This is a fun one.

Hold that up.

Tell us what's 49.

It's an allegory on
the direction nature's

going from my perspective.

Excuse me, the second
to last page, page 20.

Sorry.

I worked out this morning.

It's just coincidental
that they look alike?

Absolutely.

An original character that's
based on a hot dog man.

Part man, part hot dog.

It's clear what all
this is, so people

can say Jones is using a
white supremacist symbol,

when it's not.

And it's a way of saying
I'm a white supremacist.

So it's a way of defaming me and
acting like I stole something

all at the same time.

It's just-- God-- evil.

That is just evil.

Is that Big Bird?

Yes.

31 is not Grimace?

No.

So those aren't derivations
of the Hamburgler?

Oh, these guys?

Yes.

Do you mean Mayor McCheese?

And you got no license
to put that up?

When I was in sixth grade,
1 did not obtain a license

to draw this, no.

1 went to the
bathroom at one point,

and he's taking a piss too.

And he's like, so
I guess this is

where all the dicks hang out.

And I was like,
ha-ha, that's funny.

So awkward that I got
my dick in my hand

and we're talking right now.

And then, shortly
after that, he's

just fucking screaming at me.

We're suing Alex
Jones because he--

That's not the question I asked.

Answer the question I asked you.

It twisted my
noodles for a while.

And I-- you know when
you say something

in passing to somebody
else, and it's

like you wish you would've
said something else.

This was like four hours of
concentrated me wishing I

would have said something else.

It's not a comfortable
situation, dude.

It sucked.

It was hard.

From my point of view,
this is a direct copy.

So all of your references
before are just references,

but this one is, what,
traced, you mean?

Yeah.

Why do you suppose Pepe
looks happy in that picture?

Pepe's like a mirror.

So the way that users
online would use Pepe

is a reflection of
themselves, to an extent.

That's my interpretation of it.

No further questions.

And nothing else here either.

Thank you for your time.

This marks the end of
the videotaped deposition

of Alex Jones.

Good luck.

We're going off the record,
and the time is 13 even.

Let's try to find
a little round--

Oh.

Oh, there it is.

There.

So we need two dark green ones.

OK.

It took me weeks to
de-tangle my mind

after all this legal stuff.

And put that in the [INAUDIBLE]

But that's why I signed up for.

It's not going to
be easy, but I'm

willing to go the
distance with this shit.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) Pepe, Pepe come here.

And he hops and hops.

Pepe watch out and
he hops and hops.

Pepe, please stop.

And he hops and hops.

You make me dizzy.

You make me dizzy.

I say, Pepe come here.

Yeah.

(SINGING) And he hops and hops.

Pepe [INAUDIBLE]

[LAUGHTER]

Everybody's saying
congratulations.

A sparkle of good news
in these troubling times.

This was actually
going to trial,

and then Louis was just
like, oh, surprisingly,

they want to settle.

We were confident we were
going to prevail at trial,

and Infowars gave up.

Infowars settles Pepe
the Frog lawsuit.

Pays tiny settlement
to creator Matt Furie.

This amount, that's a bar
tab at a topless club for one

good night.

So what the heck.

This is more than I've ever made
on the Boy's Club comic book.

So it just-- to put
it into context,

Alex Jones is like, we got away
with barely paying anything,

but it's all relative.

This is a big deal to show
what these bullies are up to

and what happens when
you stand up to them.

You are the resistance.

At the end of the
day, he's just selling

a bunch of bad ideas,
bad supplements,

and a bad attitude.

It's just a business.

Without you buying the
videos and the books

and the supplements,
we couldn't put

on one hell of a junkyard dog
fight against these bastards.

This case against
Infowars was the latest

in a string of successes.

We went after Richard Spencer.

We went after Baked Alaska.

We went after The Daily
Stormer, the neo-Nazi website.

We have successfully enforced
Matt's copyrights in Pepe

against somewhere between 75
and 100 different entities

in connection with images
or language of hate.

And this is beginning to
turn the narrative of Pepe

back around.

These guys are kind of
messing with reality,

amplifying negativity or
normalizing negativity.

I'm doing everything
I can in my power

to change the course
of this thing.

And I think removing Pepe
from the hate symbol list,

it would be a win for peace.

With all these legal
steps that I'm taking,

everything that I've
been doing up until now,

my goal was to get it off
the hate symbol database.

To me, it's not a symbol.

It's a character.

It's the character, but he's
adorned with different symbols.

And they're pretty
extreme stuff.

Yeah, it's tough.

Having it on the
hate symbols database

we have found to be
really useful for those

who are trying to understand
this barrage of symbols that

is being thrown at them, whether
it's a frog, a meme, or a hand

gesture.

It's complicated.

Well yeah, it is complicated,
because I think with Pepe

on the list, it's
seen more as a win

for the so-called
alt-right or these others

because now they
have that symbol.

And this is going to be a
lifelong journey for me,

because I'm going to be
entangled with this character

forever.

But what would be the
impact of removing it?

Most of these people are
creating these images,

and they're going to keep
churning these things out.

Your bottom line
request, it's really not

going to solve the issue.

It's not about this cartoon
being on the hate symbols.

And it sucks.

All right, man.

Thanks a lot.

Yeah, thank you.

Good luck.

I don't want the narrative to
be that I'm victimized here.

People have to deal with
horror on a daily level.

Let's work together.

Let's figure this shit
out, because it's not

getting any better.

All of the accounts of what
happened to me and my family

over the years are
enormous in scale

and historically rooted in
the legacy of white supremacy.

(SINGING) This little light of
mine, I'm gonna let it shine.

Why are you being provocative?

I like trolling people.

It's fun.

You do it for fun?

Yeah.

It's fun.

The aesthetics and
ideals that extremists

are promoting online with
their use of Pepe the Frog

are now bleeding completely
into what you would otherwise

describe as regular people.

Yeah, go ahead and video me.

I'll be doing it
too, motherfucker.

You know what's coming
to you people, right?

You know Trump is
just the beginning.

You bearded monkeys have
no place in America.

The ideology is premised
on justifying violence

towards vulnerable people.

USA!

USA!

USA!

When that seeps into the
beliefs of regular Americans,

you're heading for
some place very bad.

You can't put the genie
back in the bottle,

but you can send
it somewhere else.

To actually change
the narrative,

it would be necessary
to take the frog,

to take Pepe, and
do something very

different with him,
something that could

develop a meme of its own.

[NON-ENGLISH CHANTING]

Suddenly, out of
nowhere, Pepe is

being used in Hong Kong as a
symbol of freedom, democracy,

and youth protest.

I was surprised
as much as anyone.

This is the newer
version of him.

He's wearing a hard
hat, and he's wearing

the outfit of the protesters.

This is a way to resist
authoritarianism.

Oh, he crying from the tear gas.

Pepe is now been spray painted
on walls as a symbol of hope.

When has that actually
happened in history?

You see it in
movies all the time.

They're like, this is
the symbol we're all

going to rally behind.

It just never
happens in reality,

except now it happened to Pepe.

Pepe beams into everyone's
brain this idea of the everyman.

As you grow up, you
realize that, in fact, you

can affect the world, and
you can use a small lever

to actually move a
great amount of weight.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

That's the power that Pepe has.

Like, oh, what's more
worthless than cartoons?

But what's more powerful
than Mickey Mouse?

It's one of the most
powerful things you can do

is create an iconic cartoon.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

In a lot of
traditional societies,

it was very standard to look for
omens, signs, strange portents,

things that were not expected,
that came out of the blue.

Because that was a warning
that something was shifting

in society, something
had gone wrong,

or there was something building
that you needed to know about

before it arrived.

Pepe the Frog is an omen.

We need to listen,
because it's not

going to go away until we hear
the message that it has to say.

Nowadays, I've
just been thinking

about this concept of a spiral,
life unfolding in this kind

of spirally nature.

So I have been drawing
in more circular ways.

1 think that there is a
collective consciousness

of darkness and light.

And the only thing
that seems true to me

is that everything's
going to change.

Trump's not going to
always be the president.

Planet Earth isn't always
going to have people on it.

Who knows?

The positive notion of
Pepe is the possibility

that we can change again.

Hardcore happy place.

You've got to go hardcore happy.

I still like drawing him.

1 go through waves.

1 think the last
time I talked to you,

Arthur, I was sick of him, but
now ll like trying him again.

[MUSIC - "LET GO"]

(SINGING) Brother's
smile taking on its own.

Identity only to
then leave it behind.

Foreign light in the afternoon.

Held by what-be-nots.

Stay until remembered.

Here Pm standing, ripped
apart by albatross.

Hanging by a thread.

What's in a name.

Down on the other side.

I'm almost out of sight.

Looking up to let go.

Now I'm letting go.

Now I'm letting go.

Now I'm letting go.