Zara Just Pulled This Skirt. But Why?
In 2005, artist Matt Furie created the comic series Boy’s Club, which stars the teenage monster characters Pepe, Brett, Andy and Landwolf. In early 2008, a comic in which Pepe pulls his pants down to his ankles in order to urinate was popularized on 4chan’s /b/, (random) board, along with the expression “Feels good man.”
But really the precise origins of Pepe the Frog are, like all imageboards memes, obscure and unimportant. Just know its new slang term (just like much used "LOL") of synonymous meaning rose to common use: “KEK.” What's important is that the origins of this trend comes from an odd technicality involving the Korean language and the popular video game World of Warcraft. And over the course of the American electoral campaign, Pepe transformz from an amusing star of weird memes to a white supremacist symbol.
Then comes Zara with a skirt, embroidered with cartoon frogs wearing sunglasses and selling as part of the brand’s “festival edition”. But Twitter users were quick to point out its similarities to the Pepe cartoon and internet explodes.
But the designer of the skirt is Mario de Santiago, known online as Yimeisgreat explains,
"The idea came from a wall painting I drew with friends four years ago.“There is absolutely no link to the suggested theme.”
Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe told Guardian: “It’s the worst-case scenario for any artist to lose control of their work and eventually have it labelled like a swastika or a burning cross.”
This isn’t Zara’s first time in the media, either; in 2014 they tried to release shirts that mirrored concentration camp uniform designs.
For obvious reasons, Zara has removed the Pepe skirt from its website.
On November 8th, 2014, Katy Perry tweeted a picture of Pepe crying with the caption “Australian jet lag got me like”. Over the next three years, the tweet received more than 17,000 likes and 10,500 retweets.
On December 18th, 2014, rapper Nicki Minaj posted an illustration of Pepe bent over and prominently displaying his buttocks with the caption “Me on Instagram for the next few weeks trying to get my followers back up” (shown below). Over the next two years, the post received more than 281,000 likes and 13,900 comments.
On October 13th, 2015, Donald Trump tweeted an illustration of Pepe as himself standing at a podium with the President of the United States Seal (shown below). Within 16 months, the post gathered upwards of 11,000 likes and 8,100 retweets.