Hong Kong Pepe Reclaim

2019

Date: June 2019 onward · Place: Hong Kong streets · LIHKG forum · Connect HKG mesh network · Figures: Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters · LIHKG users · Matt Furie (publicly supportive) · Tags: Reclamation, Protest, Frog 01. The Frog Without Context In June 2019 anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong fill the streets. Pepe the Frog begins appearing on protest posters, in spray-paint, in mesh-network sticker packs. The Hong Kong users adopting him have no exposure to the American alt-right's appropriation. To them Pepe is simply a sad-cute internet frog used to express resistance and grief. When New York Times reporter Daniel Victor explains the American context to LIHKG users, the response is largely a shrug. The frog they have is theirs. It is wearing protective goggles and a hard hat and is being used to mourn a protester named Marco Leung. 02. Furie Endorses Matt Furie issues a public statement supporting the Hong Kong use. After years of watching his character serve as a hate symbol, he sees it being used by protesters facing rubber bullets, water cannons, and arrest. He calls it Pepe's redemption arc. The Hong Kong reclaim is the rarest event in meme history: a symbol successfully detached from one political appropriation and reattached, with the author's blessing, to a different and incompatible one. The reattachment does not undo the prior. Both Pepes now coexist. Sources • Daniel Victor, 'Hong Kong Protesters Love Pepe the Frog. No, They're Not Alt-Right,' New York Times, 19 August 2019 • Matt Furie, statement to The Atlantic, August 2019 • Hong Kong Free Press, archived LIHKG mesh-network sticker collections, 2019-2020