Pepe cartoonist kills off character that became hate symbol
The cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog has killed off the character in a rebuke to far-right extremists who transformed a benevolent internet meme into a racist, anti-Semitic symbol.
A Pepe cartoon released Saturday in comic book stores shows Matt Furie's creation in an open casket. Furie didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment Monday.
In a Time magazine essay last year, Furie described Pepe as "chill frog-dude" who debuted in a 2006 comic book called "Boy's Club" and became a popular online subject for user-generated mutations.
But internet trolls hijacked the character and began flooding social media with hateful Pepe memes more than a year before the 2016 presidential election. Pepe became a tongue-in-cheek symbol of the "alt-right" fringe movement and its loosely connected brand of white nationalism, neo-Nazism and anti-immigration.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pepe-cartoonist-kills-off-character-that-became-hate-symbol/ar-BBATnqP?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp
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