Serwer: How do you feel about the way it’s been adopted by the so-called alt-right?
Furie: My feelings are pretty neutral, this isn’t the first time that Pepe has been used in a negative, weird context. I think it’s just a reflection of the world at large. The internet is basically encompassing some kind of mass consciousness, and Pepe, with his face, he’s got these large, expressive eyes with puffy eyelids and big rounded lips, I just think that people reinvent him in all these different ways, it’s kind of a blank slate. It’s just out of my control, what people are doing with it, and my thoughts on it, are more of amusement.
Serwer: So it doesn’t make you uneasy at all that for some people it’s become this weird Nazi thing?
Furie: I think that’s it’s just a phase, and come November, it’s just gonna go on to the next phase, obviously that political agenda is exactly the opposite of my own personal feelings, but in terms of meme culture, it’s people reapproppriating things for their own agenda. That’s just a product of the internet. And I think people in whatever dark corners of the internet are just trying to one up each other on how shocking they can make Pepe appear.
The interesting thing about this situation, is that I’m talking to you, and it’s like a newsworthy thing that this cute, generally happy frog character has taken on a life of its own for better or worse. I think what is happening now is overshadowing the importance Pepe has as a symbol for youth culture, and it’s been taken out of context and turned into something other than that. I honestly just think it’s a phase.