Introduction

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League added what was once an innocuous internet meme — Pepe the Frog — to its list of hate symbols, which also includes the swastika and the Confederate flag. The cartoon had become an unofficial mascot for the alt-right, a group of internet users that trade in and disperse racist and threatening online messages.

But can internet memes — which often mutate as they spread virally on the web — truly be a symbol of any one thing, hateful or otherwise?