Katy Perry cemented Pepe's claim to Internet stardom in 2014 by tweeting a picture of Pepe crying. Another pop star, Nicki Minaj, followed suit a few weeks later.

With barely an Internet whimper, Pepe the Frog, the anthropomorphic cartoon character turned symbol of hate, was put down by his creator, Matt Furie, over the weekend, in a single-page comic strip.

It wasn't meant to be like this. Pepe the Frog, that smiling green amphibian that's been co-opted by white nationalists and officially deemed a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was ...

Second, Pepe the frog is not usually racist. There's nothing inherently hateful about the original image. "He's just a chill frog," as Furie told The Atlantic .

Pepe started his life as a laid-back cartoon frog but memes transformed him into an alt-right villain. The evolution of this cultural phenomenon is emblematic of the relationship between online ...

Pepe was embraced by Donald Trump during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election when the then-candidate tweeted a Pepe-like representation of himself in October 2015.

Before long, Pepe went mainstream. In 2014, singer Katy Perry tweeted a crying Pepe after landing jet-lagged in Australia. Later, Nicki Minaj posted a twerking Pepe to Instagram.

How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol Richard Spencer, a well-known white-supremacist figure, walked around with a Pepe pin on his lapel, Segal said.

In the background of the picture is Pepe the Frog, a popular internet meme that started as a comic in 2005 but was embraced by far-right groups when Trump was first running for president.

There was Landwolf, the party animal; Andy, the prankster; Brett, the dancer—and then there was Pepe, a super chill frog who, through a series of twisted events, would eventually become the ...