Pepe the Frog: The Uncontrollable Meme

Pepe the Frog is a character who predates many popular memes and NFT collections. This anthropomorphic frog is turning 25 soon! He first appeared in the comic book series "Boy's Club" by artist Matt Furie. 

Matt Furie came up with the idea for "Boy's Club" in 2005, and the first print edition was released in 2006. The story follows teenage monster characters Pepe, Brett, Landwolf, and Andy. In an interview with knowyourmeme.com in 2010, Matt revealed that he and his cousin were the prototypes for the characters:

In 2008, an episode of Pepe the Frog taking off his pants and urinating, accompanied by the caption "Feels good man," gained popularity on the anonymous imageboard 4chan.org, signaling the emergence of Pepe the Frog as a new meme.

In 2009, after various iterations of the happy-go-lucky frog, a more commonly known version of Pepe called "Feels bad man" surfaced. This version became popular among members of 4chan.org and bodybuilders on thematic forums. Additionally, character profiles of Pepe started to emerge on social media, with support from celebrities such as Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj.

Pepe the Frog had been seen as a harmless character for a long time, appearing in various forms online, ranging from the classic frog to the Mona Lisa. However, things took a drastic turn in 2015 when the character was reimagined as Donald Trump on his official Twitter account.

Memes featuring Pepe as Trump quickly gained popularity. However, this newfound fame had a downside. The Daily Beast published an article titled "How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol," which sparked a discussion about the character's association with white nationalism and the "alt-right." Major news outlets like CNN and The Hill picked up the story, further fueling the controversy.  

During the election campaign, Hillary Clinton added to the controversy by publishing an article called "Donald Trump, Pepe the Frog, and White Supremacists: An Explainer," in which she portrayed Pepe as a sinister Nazi symbol. This led to a divided public reaction, with some seeing Pepe as a global evil and others defending the character as apolitical.

Artist Matt Furie, who created Pepe, denied any intention of creating a racist meme and emphasized that he had created the character as a symbol of peace, unity, and fun. Independent media outlets and Reddit users also defended Pepe and criticized the misunderstanding of the character's true meaning. Publisher Fantagraphics also stood by Furie, supporting his efforts to reclaim Pepe's original message:

Collaborating with the Anti-Defamation League, Furie launched the social campaign #SavePepe in an effort to reclaim the character from the hands of the far-right. The organizers believed that spreading positive depictions of Pepe the Frog would help to mitigate the negative associations. A similar situation occurred in France in 2017, where Pepe was frequently used in support of Marine Le Pen and French nationalists.

Despite its tarnished reputation, Pepe the Frog continued to gain momentum. It transitioned from being an internet meme to the Web3 world, where it became an irreplaceable token on the counterparty.io platform. The first NFTs of the Rare Pepes project appeared on the Bitcoin blockchain in 2016, surpassing even CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties based on Ethereum.

The NFTs featuring Pepe took the network by storm with their diversity and the character's traditional charm. On rarepepes.com, collections include both commonly-found digital art objects produced in the hundreds or thousands, and unique projects released in single copies. One of them is a Rare Pepe NFT called "Pepenopoulos” which was sold for $3.6 million at a Sotheby's auction.

The web3 revolution did not stop with Pepe the Frog. One of the cryptographic products featuring Pepe was the rarepepewallet.com wallet. It is designed for counterparty.io users who trade Rare Pepe NFTs and use Pepe Cash, a native virtual currency of the Pepesphere, that is used to pay transaction fees and is integrated into gaming projects.

The latest NFT with Pepe is currently FEELSGOODMAN. Of the 500 non-fungible tokens issued in collaboration with the chainsaw.fun platform on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, 400 were burned, 99 were transferred to PegzDAO, and one was put up for auction. It was purchased by collector Halston Thayer for 150 ETH, who later sued to get his money back. The reason is that PegzDAO gave away 46 identical NFTs for free a few weeks after the auction ended.