This is Pepe.
Credit: Fran Zi/YouTube.com
Originally a character in cartoonist Matt Furie's comic strip, the saddened frog gained a permanent home on imageboard site 4chan before exploding into mainstream popularity in 2015, receiving the honor of being the most used meme on Tumblr that year. Since then, Pepe has enjoyed a quietly steady existence among the denizens of the Internet. That is, until this past Tuesday.
This past Tuesday, Hillary Clinton's campaign posted a lengthy explanatory article about Pepe, who aside from being a meme has become something of the unofficial mascot for both the Alt-Right movement (a "mainstream" alternative to conservatism) and Donald Trump's campaign. This was in response to an image mocking Clinton's naming of Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables", with Pepe being featured in a mock movie poster alongside key Trump supporters. Quickly seizing an opportunity, Clinton's campaign explained to its meme-savvy supporters how Pepe is actually a symbol of white nationalism, and used it to tie Trump to the often racist and xenophobic Alt-Right trolls lurking in the dark corners of the Internet. However, since this isn't a political blog, I won't be discussing political ideology or whether Clinton's campaign was even correct in its explanation, but rather the social and psychological ramifications of Pepe's exploitation.
Interestingly enough, using an image or symbol for some sort of gain isn't a new phenomenon; people do it every day without even realizing it. This is called framing; presenting something in a certain way to generate a specific cognitive response in people. For example, let's say I offer you a deal: I'll give you psychic powers that'll allow to predict the outcome of all Penn State football games. Naturally, you'd take it; the benefits of such abilities would be enormously rewarding for you. However, let's say i come to you a week later and tell you that your psychic powers could've been used to prevent a catastrophic war, and instead you wasted them on football ; now you feel like terrible person. What I've done was present the matter in a new frame, from positive to negative, without changing the original wording of our bargain. Is it deceptive? Sure. But it works.
As you may already know, our perception of reality is subjective; it's not absolute, but based on our emotions, thoughts, and experiences, and how we frame things determines the value of those experiences. We can choose to look back at a day we got drenched by rain on the way to class, for example, with burning hatred or fond amusement. In fact, framing is actually a survival mechanism; it allows our brain to make order in a world full of chaos, its primary function. Essentially, our brain frames the one straight line in a jumble of curves and criss-crosses. Though I won't get too deep into it, framing also creates meaning out of nothing; why do we remember specific events vividly and other dimly? Because something, our emotions, our thoughts, made us look at that event in a way that gave it importance.
What the Clinton campaign did with Pepe is an example of political framing, which is about as old as politics itself. The way people feel about issues is based on how politicians frame them; for example, abortion seems much more palatable as "a medical procedure" rather than "baby killing." Is a drug epidemic a "law and order" problem or a "medical" problem? Asking someone "How do you feel about Obama?" versus "How do you feel about that dirty Democrat Barry O?" obviously triggers a certain response because of the wording, one reason why all those polls the news loves to show often aren't very scientific. And yes, even the news media is guilty of "spinning" issues to suit a certain narrative; just look at how differently Fox News and MSNBC cover the same story.
Alas, framing is an essential, often unnoticed fact of life. As much as we want to avoid being "played" according to our biases, we're hardwired to respond based on how we feel, and let cold hard objectivity take a back seat. You'll see framing no matter where you look, even, it seems, in the meme of a cartoon frog.
Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201012/framing-your-most-important-and-least-recognized-daily-ment
The background photo for your blog killed me when I first opened it!! I came into this expecting a kind of meme of the week esque blog but I was pleasantly surprised at how much depth this post has! What can I say, I came for the memes and stayed for the psychology
ReplyDeleteI really like that this post not only explained the origin of Pepe, but also talked about how it was used most recently and how you used the meme to explain a political concept. All around great post!
ReplyDeleteI personall love memes. In fact, as an avid fan of ifunny, I truly believe that they showcase some of the ingenious and spur of the moment ideas. I also found it interesting how you included politics in this post. It's quite strange how a political candidate who is almost 70 can recognize how important memes are to the younger generation, and uses them to pander to the voting population. I plan to keep up with your blog, it seems entertaining and informative all at the same time!
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