Not since Good Morning America referred to Kermit the Frog as a #TeaLizard has an fictitious frog caused such confusion and controversy.
Anyone who’s spent more than a day on the internet has seen Pepe the frog in one form or the other, and recently he’s adopted his darkest, most sinister persona yet—as an alt-right white supremacist.
Pepe’s creator, Matt Furie, disavowed the connection, saying it was just a bump in the life of a meme that’s constantly changing: “[I]t’s not the first time Pepe has been reclaimed for evil,” he said in an interview withthe Daily Dot, “and no one will care about it come November. I predict that his sly, lovable, and charming status will be intact as early as next week.”
But it hasn’t stopped the alt-right from using the innocent frog for their own purposes.