Update: The link 404’d (it went viral, it will re-enliven eventually). Thats the nature of all things 4chan…
… here is a related link so you didn’t waste a click:
The Alt-Right “Kek” Religion: Pointless Anti-Christian Vanity or Bizarre Joke?
Aaaaand the link is back up…
THE TRUTH ABOUT PEPE THE FROG AND THE CULT OF KEK
THE REAL STORY BEHIND HILLARY CLINTON’S “CARTOON NAZI FROG” WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
Pepe the Frog isn’t a white nationalist symbol.
Pepe the Frog isn’t a harmless meme propagated by teenagers on the internet.
Pepe the Frog is, in fact, the modern-day avatar of an ancient Egyptian deity accidentally resurrected by online imageboard culture.
Does that sound like the most b@tsh#t crazy thing you’ve ever heard?
Strap in, friendo. You’re in for one hell of a ride.
When Memes Collide: The Origins of Pepe the Frog
The precise origins of Pepe the Frog are, like all imageboards memes, obscure and unimportant.
All you really need to know is that sometime around 2010, a sad-looking cartoon frog began to trend among posters on 4chan.org, 8ch.net, and similar “underground” imageboards.
Shortly after, the age-old piece of online vernacular used to express laughter-—”LOL”—fell out of favor on these sites.
In its place a new slang term of synonymous meaning rose to common use: “KEK.”
The origins of this trend are much more important. It comes from an odd technicality involving the Korean language and the popular video game Star Craft.
Keep that in mind for later.
And so, just like that, two seemingly unrelated elements that would later give life to a deity were arranged in piece-mail fashion. But they remained dormant for several years, up until…
Donald Trump and the 2016 Election
By this time, Pepe the Frog had become the unofficial mascot for 4chan’s political discussion board (a highly despised corner of the Internet fittingly entitled “Politically Incorrect”).
/Pol/ is a place where the unspoken outsiders of Millennial culture gather en masse. Here you’ll find the lonely and depressed, the socially inept, the generational dropouts, and all shades of disenfranchised youth—every one of them united with an unshakable underdog mentality that pervades the forum’s every kilobyte.
To call this place a “white nationalist” or “alt-right” message board is categorically incorrect. /Pol/, above all else, is place where our society’s status quo is mercilessly challenged. It’s a melting pot for well-meaning free thinkers and misguided mad men alike.
It is a place of chaos.
So when Donald J. Trump strolled onto the political scene in 2015, it was a match made in heaven. He immediately became /pol/’s candidate of choice.
Read it all here, it’s a fantastic write up.
Update: Now this is funny!
The troll consisted of Town and Swift feeding an outrageous narrative to Nuzzi in the hopes she would scoop it up and feature as many quotes as possible, which is a fairly common practice among various alt-right groups to gain in-group status.
PoliTech 