Pepe the Frog<!-- --> | <!-- -->Ben Pettis
Ben Pettis

Pepe the Frog

February 01, 2018

A black slide with a cartoon frog at the top-center. The frog has a speech bubble saying 'feels good man.' The title on the slide reads 'Pepe the Frog. A case study of the internt meme and its potential subversive power to challenge cultural hegemonies'

This thesis examines Internet memes, a unique medium that has the capability to easily and seamlessly transfer ideologies between groups. It argues that these media can potentially enable subcultures to challenge, and possibly overthrow, hegemonic power structures that maintain the dominance of a mainstream culture. I trace the meme from its creation by Matt Furie in 2005 to its appearance in the 2016 US Presidential Election and examine how its meaning has changed throughout its history. I define the difference between a meme instance and the meme as a whole, and conclude that the meaning of the overall meme is formed by the sum of its numerous meme instances. This structure is unique to the medium of Internet memes and is what enables subcultures to use them to easily transfer ideologies in order to challenge the hegemony of dominant cultures.