People who use it are either using it as a way of displaying that they’re bigots, or they don’t care about the association with bigots.
There’s not really any positive way to use it, so it’s a giant red flag whenever I see it.
Peak. Right here is the person who is weak and ruins it for everyone.
Thank you for proving my point
🤣👌👍🤡
This is how I see it too.
If not for association with the alt right, I at least see it as a sign of “I am a terminally online dork who tries to portray myself as lovably pitiful so as to manipulate others” or “this is a crutch for my low self esteem” or just…well. Some of this is from my own personal biases and experiences, I’ll be forward about that.
So to make a long story short, even without Nazi associations, there’s no good way to use a Pepe in my experience, and no one I know who uses him frequently has been a good person.
The only problem with this line of thinking is that it empowers bigots to continue to subvert any character or symbol they choose.
I’d rather see those symbols used more often in ways that fight bigotry than to give in to that manipulation.That would be great if anyone was actually attemping to reclaim pepe, but in practice, more often than not, the red flags are right.
It’s the equivalent of a “beware of the dog” sign: sometimes it’s just a puppy, but sometimes it’s rabid.
No, but I know a guy who almost got expelled from art school for drawing an image of pepe. So I guess it depends who you ask.
Hate speech is strong, but I do generally treat it as a “I probably don’t get along with you” indicator based on personal experiences.
No. Why would you let the nazis to appropriate anything they want?
Do a reverse uno card and go appropriate some of their shit. Like antifastonetoss. Take everything out of their hands.
No. It’s also part of internet culture. I know way too many decent people who use the meme. While it’s totally understandable to distance ourselves from a symbol if it becomes too poisoned by the far right, we also shouldn’t just allow them to claim things we like. That only gives them power they don’t deserve.
By itself? No. The original character was not political, the community that made “feels bad man” famous as a meme wasn’t political, and many, many, many of the variants still around split off before it was seen as political. Even in the political sphere, there are plenty of left-wing variants too which I would not consider hate speech. A frogpost without context will make me examine someone closer for other clues, but it’s not inherently political or hateful.
I consider Pepe to be a picture. How the hell is it speech in any way?
I’m going to assume this question was asked in good faith. Speech is a synonym for expression. The written word is also not technically speech but is very much included in the term “Free Speech”.
Thanks. I can be a literal-minded idiot sometimes.
You’re being a bit hard on yourself. Words (and other things) change over time, misunderstanding things isn’t shameful, only failing to adapt to new information is.
Have a blessed Friday :)
Thanks, friend. You too!
No. Some time ago on Lemmy I had to explain the same thing to someone who was trying to make the claim that “glowie” was a racist term because it was used next to the N word in it’s first use by Terry A. Davis even though the context showed that “glowie” was being used as a derogatory term for members of the CIA and not people of color.
I had to explain that if someone used the F slur next to the word “rainbow” that does not make “rainbow” derogatory, and if it did, we would have a big problem with many, many more words.
The mistake people make here seems to be related to a composition/division logical fallacy in which they think that just because one thing is associated with another thing in specific context, the context of the second thing must be applied to the entirety of the first thing without exception, when this is not the case at all.
The exact same idea applies to Pepe. Pepe was not made as a hate symbol, but under some contexts has been used as one. This does not mean that Pepe is always a symbol of hate without exception.
No but I associate him with the alt right imbeciles who appropriated him.
Pepe is love language.
No more than I consider Bill Watterson’s Calvin to be a redneck icon
Well said
ITT: people who sport the “Michael Jordan” mustache
Pepe is how I find frens.
Not on its own. If someone’s using it a lot and giving other hate signals, I’ll suspect that they know what they’re doing.
