Pepe - The Original Dank Meme

NSFW - Language and Adult Themes

This is perhaps going to longest and worst post on this blog simply because there is so much to cover. In total our friend Pepe the Frog spans over a comic, at least 1252 submemes and so many variants that it would literally take weeks to finish this post so here's the deal. This post is going to be the highlight reel of some of the most memorable and altered Pepe's on the internet crème de la crème if you will. So sit back, relax and enjoy the sweet sweet sounds of the internet moaning in disapproval because their favourite variant was not mentioned.

Pepe originated as a character within the 2005 Gross-out comic Boy's Club. Written by Matt Furie, the cast consisted of a group of teenage monsters named Brett, Andy, Landwolf and Pepe the Frog. This comic and Pepe in particular first became relevant in early 2008 when one of the comic strips was uploaded on the 4chan's /b/ board. It depicted Pepe pulling his pants down in order to use the bathroom. This along with the expression "Feels Good Man" were the first among many Pepe variants to become popular on 4chan.

An example of Furie's Comic Boy's Club

Throughout most of 2008, Pepe was mostly affiliated with the "Feels Good Man" reaction image. Shitposters began to use photoshop to edit the final frame of the comic so that Pepe's face was on the body of different characters. During the initial photoshopping of the Feels Good Man meme, the face and caption would be edited onto primarily pokemon. The phrase itself had also become separate from Pepe himself as shitposters would use the phrase to justify their actions or behaviour.

An example of early implimentation of the "Feels Good Man" Pepe Varient

The "Feels Good Man" variant, "Feels Bad Man" was first posted on January 22nd 2009. The varient is depicted as a photoshopped version of the original "Feels Good Man" meme with the smile being turned 180 degrees into a frown and the accompanying text saying "Feels Bad Man". This was taken even further when on August 17th 2009, a user on the 4chan body building forums posted a sad frog image of Pepe which said "Not Good Man".

A comparison between the "Feels Bad Man" and "Not Good Man" Meme

It was not until early 2009 that Pepe would be paired with the "You will never X" meme. This pairing is first seen on June the 11th 2009 on the /a/ forums.

An example of the "You will Never X" meme being paired with "Feels Bad Man"

Another notable variant of Pepe is Angry Pepe also known as Angry Frog or REEEEEE. Angry Pepe is a reaction image of a hostile looking variant of Pepe the frog which is used in combination with expressions of rage or frustration. The oldest use of this meme comes from 2014 where it was posted on 4chan's /R9k/ (ROBOT9001) board. The image is a greentext rant about normal people or as the user would refer to them as being; 'normal fags'. 

This image continues to be reused by all members of the 4chan community and beyond as it is such a strong statement of pure frustration and irritability. On February 9th an anonymous Tumblr user created variations of the Angry Pepe meme gathering over 12,500 notes over the following week. 

 

Variants of the Angry Pepe Meme

There are just too many Pepe memes to cover. I may come back to this in the future as a part 2 but, this is all I can do for now. So until the next time this has been Cluedo100 over and out. 

NOTABLE MENTIONS

To the following people; thank you so much for helping me gather information and images for this final post as well as help me choose what to write about!

Hannah, Jake, Jank and Riley - Thank you so so so much :) 

Memes about food. Because we all love food!

This is great. I think I'm on this kind of diet as well! Food memes are associated with anything related to food, act of consuming food or food itself. There is no clear origination, however, food memes are another form of the meme variations that arose during the popular "Meme Eruption Phase" in 2012. Although it's a new form of "art" or "entertainment", the uprising has been strong. There's probably more memes on the internet than there are online stores. Food memes being one of the types of memes which contribute to this statistic.

 Do you see the irony? What's the point of a diet coke when you're probably going to get diabetes from eating that ALONE. But then that's the reason why it's so funny! Food memes both make you laugh and hungry, especially if you love food as much as I do!

I remember when my mum tried to do this to get me to eat healthy! Just kidding, i always eat healthy... But hey at least she tried? A+ For effort! That looks like something that someone on a diet that's craving junk food would eat. 

JUST REMEMBER. There is no 'we' in 'food'. Never share your food, but you can always share your food MEMES! Hahahaha... not funny? Okay I apologise. Maybe you're not a fan of LAUGHTER. Or maybe I'm just lame. No matter, food memes are the real winners here. 

Animal memes: Humans aren't the only memes!

Humans made the meme. But beware, because a meme can be made out of anything, or should i say, any animal? That's right! Animal memes! The origins of the use of animals for memes arrived around the same times the first memes were made. There is no precise time. The more popular animal memes such as the Shiba Inu (Doge Meme) become a meme of their own! HOWEVER, don't underestimate those who didn't make it to their own meme, they're still packing some punches!

What could be more touching than not giving up on your dreams? Well in this case, maybe this dream wasn't going to come into fruition. But, its the effort that counts, right? Credits to animal.space.net for this amazing image! 

Still, memes are not all fun and games.... maybe. In the real world, you need real skills and qualifications to get a job and the necessities involved in living out your life. Well, I believe this Koala has their life sorted perfectly.

It's a play on words! The pun makes this meme that much more hilarious. 

Not Impressed?

Memes were always meant to be a source of laughter, it's what it was created for. Animal memes are no different, if they weren't doing what they were intended for, there wouldn't be that many around. Its great to have such a huge variety of memes to look at to suit different types of people and their individual taste. Some memes can be outright cruel, while others can be adorably cute... speaking of which:

 This is adorable right? Even though the dog probably didn't say anything like this, you can imagine that it's probably doing exactly that. They get excited and end up destroying everything which wakes you up, which gets them even more excited!

Umaru - The Most Hated Anime Girl

Warning! Course Language - I think you know what you are in for by now..

Umaru Dogma is the fictional character from Sankaku Head's anime and manga entitled Himouto! Umaru-chan. It follows a young high school student who appears to be perfect when it comes to all areas of school life however, when she returns home, she turns into the manga reading, cola drinking and anime playing alter ego. As a result, people seem to connect to her alter ego and empathise with her however, member of the shitposting community hate Umaru for encouraging laziness and misrepresenting the Otaku community.

A typical representation of Umaru

The manga debuted in the Japanese manga magazine Weekly Young Jump on March 13th 2013 and by late December of the next year, it was announced that it would be adapted into an anime. The first episode was released on July the 9th 2015 to much acclaim by general audiences and by August 2015 the manga series had sold 1.5 million copies. 

Umaru was first notably mentioned on July 8th 2015 when reddit user, Shadowflix submitted a threat to /r/anime to discuss the first episode. This thread gained over 360 points (with over 97% up voted) and 140 comments within a month. During the following month, fan art and GIFs of the show were being posted to subreddits including /r/awwnime and /r/animegifs. By August a wikia on the series had been created and the following day, a series subreddit had been established.

Meanwhile, on 4chan, Umaru had become a hot topic but for all of the wrong reasons. It had become a source of shitposting on the site. Boards /a/, /v/ and /r9k/ were using pictures of Umaru to inspire a hatebase for the anime character.

A popular example of the Umaru Hatebase

A number of other memes spawned due to the show's influence. These include the hamster hoodie, opening parodies of the show and WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING.  The hamster hoodie and opening parody memes have quite a few core basics in common. They both serve as a template that individuals alter and project their desired property onto. In the case of the hamster hoodie meme it is simply giving the property of choice a hamster hood and drawing them so that they match the chibi style of the show, almost as if that property itself had been from Himouto! Umaru-chan. The act of hamster hooding became so popular that, Young Jump - the original publishers of the anime release an Umaru maker that would 'hood' any character or object that is downloaded into the maker. The same goes for the opening parody memes as other characters once again edited to look chibi and re-enact key scenes from the opening song of the anime.

   An example of 'Hamster Hooding' a character. In this example, it is a character from Splatoon

 A John Cena Parody of the Himouto! Umaru-chan Opening

The final meme WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING, is actually a phrase made famous by the Umaru hatebase as a response to seeing the character for the first time or seeing her do something usual to her chibi persona. This is usually accompanied by a close-up image of Brain from the band Ninja Sex Party. Originating a post on /a/ in July 2015, this has become an inside joke of the Umaru fanbase.  

An image of Umaru and Ninja Brain together as a response to the "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING" meme

There's one more post on the horizon, so buckle in because we are about to go to 4chan!

High expectation Asian memes are A+

Oh no. This cannot Be. Oh but it is. HIGH EXPECTATION ASIAN MEMES! 

What is this "High Expectation Asian meme" you speak of, you may ask. Well, I shall tell! It begins with the stereotype that people from an Asian-orientated family usually have high-expectation parents. To be more specific, it is usually the father. The meme arises from the theory that these high expectation parents push their children to achieve only the best results, nothing less. In fact, anything less would probably get them disowned. This is exaggerated (maybe), but exaggeration is what really makes this meme unique. For example:

 This uses the American grading system, where "A" would indicate the best score, while "B" and "C" would be lower and so on. This particular meme uses both the grading A, and the removal of the "A"s in "Asian", which would both equal to it being a sin. Confused? Here's another one.

This one uses the homonym of "C" and "Sea" along with the American grading system to create a humorous asian meme. But wait, BAM, and another one!

Have you seen enough of his face? Don't worry, variations exist! 

Just kidding, no variation. This one exaggerates it a little bit, but it does make it all that more funnier. There's also a lesson here. Don't disappoint your parents! Get that 4.0 GPA. Or get disowned. Maybe it's not a good lesson, but it's still a lesson! 

What's your sign, Ted Cruz?

An election season is ripe for viral content, and none more so than the US primaries. While the office of President is always an invitation for people to go rummaging deep in the closet for skeletons, no-one usually believes they're going to find any actual bodies. That changed when Ted Cruz put himself into the light. What started as a single off-the-cuff tweet in 2013 would resurface in December 2015 with a Facebook page titled "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer".

#ZodiacTed pic.twitter.com/bjTt6tM0TH

— TCITZK (@ZodiacTed) February 22, 2016

Then. Then. Ted Cruz appeared in a CBS candidate debate. The debate ran a Google Trends ticker across the bottom of the page to engage the audience with current google searches about the candidates. Twitter user @vrunt put out a call for everyone to search "is Ted Cruz the zodiac killer", and, shortly after, photoshopped a screencap of the debate listing it as the number one search enquiry for the debate. Despite it being an obvious fake, the Internet adopted it as lulzy gospel and went forth.

holy shit we did it. oh my god oh my god #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/d6WQFAC4am

— nate (@vrunt) February 14, 2016

whew! went on a great run today :) pic.twitter.com/jNuGxgdUQX

— Kevin Tang (@Yolo_Tengo) February 26, 2016

http://tedcruzconfirmed.tumblr.com/post/142485261359

Why does everyone keep joking about Ted Cruz being the Zodiac Killer?

I mean he definitely is but like, people died

— Griffin McElroy (@griffinmcelroy) February 26, 2016

http://zodiac-ted-cruz.tumblr.com/post/140585319559

I think it’d be hilarious if the Zodiac Killer came forward because he couldn’t stand the idea that people think he is Ted Cruz.

— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) February 26, 2016

This simple bit of satire managed to gain enough traction that Heidi Cruz, Ted's wife, was asked about it by Yahoo News, responding that "...I’ve been married to him for 15 years, and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all." Of course, the Zodiac Killer was killing people before Ted Cruz was born, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

they say, "oh, Ted Cruz is too young to be the Zodiac Killer," but lying about his age is exactly the kind of thing the Zodiac would do.

— Cannes Boo (@J_Rosenfield) February 26, 2016

When First World Problems become a meme

First world problem memes are based off the frustrations and annoyances expressed by individuals in privileged, wealthy countries. It is used to make light of trivial inconveniences, especially when you're comparing it with third world countries. The origins of the term "First World Problems" dates back to 1995 where it was first sung in "Omissions of the Omen" by Matthew Good's band. Since then, first world memes have been known as minor problems that exist in an industrialised nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at. It mostly involves annoying issues or minor problems. Can't differentiate between first world and third world real problems? Here's an example:

There's a big difference.

This meme embellishes dark humor to draw in the laughs, it's not exactly a nice meme. It makes light of dire situations across developing countries. Now let's have a look at exactly what a first world problem meme could be. 

Normally this would be followed by "#FirstWorldProblems" on social media sites. These annoyances at insignificant problems can really make one chuckle when you're stuck in bigger problems. Like an assessment that's due. I know! Let's look at another one since they're so entertaining to look at!

This is a variation of the first world problem meme. Rather than portraying a first world individual being frustrated, it depicts an image of a child in disbelief. It emphasises how our minor issues would be a gift to the third world people. However, the amusment comes from the caption. This one talks about the disbelief in having water fights, rather than fighting to survive for water. 

Dat Boi and the Rise of the Frog Memes

WARNING! Meme contains course langauge.

"Dat Boi" is the latest dank meme from this side of the internet. A distant cousin to another famous frog, Pepe. This unicycle riding frog, 'rode' onto the scene in April 4th 2016.

  Original Image of 'Dat Boi' Interestingly enough, this meme actually consists of a blend of two other memes. The term phrase "dat boi" actually originates from a photoshopped news report on FunnyJunk in 2014. The image in question depicts a young boy with an edited mustache and named "dat boi" with the heading being"Most Wanted Criminal Arrested"

The Original 'Dat Boi'

This then developed into the 2015 Tumblr image now known as "O Shit Here Comes Pacman" which depicts the video game character Pacman walking towards the screen wearing sunglasses. Though the original  post has now been removed, the image of the post managed to accumulate 75,800 posts well into the next year. 

Original Image of "O Shit Here Comes Pacman"

"Dat Boi" became a 'dank' meme on April 3rd 2016. This is when he was uploaded by the shitposting Facebook page entitled Fresh Memes About the Mojave Desert and other Delectable Cuisines. This then spawned a plethora of different variants and became viral within the underground shit posting community. 

An example of 'Dat Boi' during the peak of popularity
Dank memes typically become known as 'dead' once an individual of the general populous starts critiquing or making content about said meme. In the case of 'Dat Boi', this occurred when internet news site The Daily Dot released an opinion piece entitled "I killed your meme and I don't care" on the 5th of May 2016. The author Miles Klee goes on to describe and critique the meme for the general populous.  Currently, 'dat boi' variants are being created by the general public and the dank meme / shitposting community has outcast the meme. However, the subculture of shitposters known as ironic meme shitposters have dubbed 'dat boi' as being a major contender to the frog meme Pepe. Pepe and 'Dai Boi' battling to the death whilst other frog memes look on If you like what you have read, there will be more ironic shitposting and dank meme blog posts coming up over the next few weeks so stay tuned and trust me, the rabbit hole goes way deeper than this...

Peter Dutton and the case of the unflattering photo.

"Peter Dutton photo goes global" is not necessarily a headline we'd expect out of Australian politics but this week, the immigration minister became a trending topic when a poorly lit photo met the internet before his press secretary had time to stop it. Journalist Stephanie Peatling tweeted the photo, taken by Alex Ellinghausen, and gave it the simple caption of "Eek". At this point, it could've just been another unattractive photo on the internet that would soon be forgotten, but for the actions of Dutton's media team. They requested Peatling remove the photo, claiming it to be "unflattering". Peatling agreed, on the condition that she could state why the photo was no longer on her twitter feed. The internet collectively saw an opportunity, and a meme was born.

It started with a tweet raising the idea that perhaps Dutton's staff don't understand how the internet works...

Peter Dutton wants this photo deleted, so please delete it ASAP!
I'll just pin it here so you know which one it is. pic.twitter.com/n05I34bD2o

— Dave Donovan (@davrosz) May 3, 2016

And then, we descended into pop culture villains with this Hannibal Lecter reference.

Please stop sharing this image of Peter Dutton. #dutton pic.twitter.com/Su2Q4Yalve

— timdunlop (@timdunlop) May 3, 2016

Followed by Darth Malgus...

Please stop sharing this photo of Peter Dutton. He doesn't like it. pic.twitter.com/aJAyNf58f1

— David C. Simon (@theleast) May 3, 2016

And Dracula, Stephen King's Pennywise, and the "monster under the bed" trope.

Reddit has its faults, but /r/photoshopbattle went to town on Dutton last night pic.twitter.com/0WkrgowdBc

— Special Agent Scully (@miss_shiny) May 3, 2016

Queen made an iconic appearance.

Peter Dutton #auspol pic.twitter.com/wqVBVWSJqO

— Olivia Copse (@OliviaCopse) May 3, 2016

Our Dutton coverage ends with a meta-meme. In 2013, Beyonce's publicist requested that Buzzfeed remove some "unflattering" photos from her Superbowl half-time performance. Buzzfeed responded by doubling down, starting a new thread with the photos featured. This edit adds one unwanted photo to another, whilst creating something comically absurd but distinctly unique to the internet.

The real picture Dutton didn't want you to see. pic.twitter.com/ASpxtGDXQr

— James Hutchinson (@j_hutch) May 3, 2016

Politics is fertile ground for content. Memes can sit in the cross-section of visual media and satire, allowing for something that is easily accessible, capable of making a point and, in many cases, hilarious. We'll be looking at a few other instances of political memes over the next few weeks so if making fun of politicians sounds like your idea of a good time, be sure to follow us on Twitter - we're @MemeMachineMQ.

When Basketball is your Life

Hobbies can be fun. They can also can be insanely competitive and life altering. Basketball has always been a competitive sport, but this competitiveness makes those who fail at it all the more embarrassing. This marks the birth of basketball memes, where individuals who try hard, fail hard. For example, sometimes you just like basketball a lot, maybe a bit too much? In fact, this fellow gentleman took it to the next level, he BECAME a basketball, and a internet meme while he was at it. I wish my dedication was that intense.

Still, basketball memes don't just come from the supporters, they can come from the players themselves too. Especially when a professional basketball player doesn't look like they're playing basketball. 

Wow. When you're in that position, just slap on a caption and it instantly becomes a sensational basketball meme. In his defense, at least he probably stopped that guy from hitting the shot. Still, it looks more like he should be playing soccer, don't you agree? 

THEN AGAIN, photo editing becomes a popular option to creating popular basketball memes, even when the players themselves are unaware of it. You could have a wonderful and normal photo of people playing basketball, but a simple take and switch with a photo editing program can meme-ify that photo. Take a look at this red hot, or should i say delicious basketball meme?

SO GOOD. I may be talking about the chicken or the player, but now you'll never know!