The Anti-Defamation League has declared that Pepe the Frog, a comic book character that was innocently created by Matt Furie, a symbol of hate. Pepe was created for a comic book series called Boy’s Club back in 2005 according to the Time article reporting the declaration by the ADL.
The image was used as an Internet meme that was dubbed “sad frog” when it first popped up on 4chan (what I like to call the open sewer of the Interwebs), but eventually became the apparent symbol of the “alt-right”. The character earned its label by being associated with anti-Semitic posts around the Internet. ADL added the ‘(((echo)))’ symbol to it’s list of offensive symbols earlier this year.
I wonder if the Anti-Defamation League knows about 4chan. They’d probably be incensed.