Matt Furie has launched a campaign to transform the cartoon frog from a symbol of hate used by racist Donald Trump supporters to a symbol of peace

How could you reclaim a meme that’s been appropriated by white supremacists? That’s the challenge faced by Pepe the Frog’s creator Matt Furie.

Furie has launched the #SavePepe campaign in an attempt to transform the cartoon frog from a symbol of hate used by racist Donald Trump supporters to a symbol of peace. He’s urging people to flood the internet with their own “peaceful or nice” versions of Pepe to claw the character back from the alt-right.

“We are in uncharted territory right now,” said Furie, an artist and author of children’s books as well as a Hillary Clinton supporter, “But I have to take some responsibility for him because he’s like my kid or something.”

Furie created Pepe back in 2005 as one of four anthropomorphic characters in a comic book called Boy’s Club to amuse his friends at work.

“The frog was just a chilled-out frog who likes to eat snacks and talk on the phone, smoke weed,” he said. “All the characters are an extension of different parts of my personality, but particularly Pepe. He has these heavy eyelids and laid-back nature that I think I have.”

Pepe first became a meme in around 2008. People were lifting frames from the comic book, particularly one where Pepe has pulled his pants all the way down to pee and says “feels good, man” and another where Pepe is consoling himself about his lack of success with women, saying “at least I have time for a pizza on a bagel” and adding their own captions. “Then the Sad Frog took off,” said Furie, referencing a meme that flipped “feels good man” on its head.

“It just started to have a life of its own. All these versions of Pepe having different personalities – smug, sad or really violent and weird,” said Furie, citing a “scatological and weirdly graphic” version known as Poo Poo Pee Pee Pepe [NSFW].

Pepe’s success was international, and he won major followings in China and Korea. “Pepe transcends all these kind of sociological boundaries. He’s just a cartoon frog that’s sad and people can relate to that.”

That all changed on 12 September, when Hillary Clinton posted an explainer about Pepe the Frog becoming a racist hate symbol. Over the previous few weeks, Pepe had been appropriated by the alt-right and was being used as a mascot for white supremacy by some Trump supporters. Two weeks later, Pepe was added to the Anti-Defamation League’s database of hate symbols, joining the swastika, the triangular Klan symbol and other iconography associated with racism.

Pepe’s face is a common profile icon for Trump supporters on Twitter.

Furie acknowledges that he lost control of Pepe the day he became a meme. “It doesn’t really matter who creates the meme. It becomes an internet thing.” However, when ADL credited him as the creator of Pepe, he realized he had to intervene.

“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,” he said.

“I had to step up and speak on the cartoon frog’s behalf.”

Furie has collected about 600 positive or peaceful frog memes being generated by the #SavePepe campaign. He plans to incorporate these into what he calls a “Peace Pepe Database of Love”, an online resource for people who want to support his campaign to cement Pepe’s reputation as a “stoned, chilled frog”.

“I would like to get the frog off the hate database. It means a lot to me as he’s an extension of myself.”