Hasta La Creative!

The most recent “happening” was when Donald Trump Jr posted an image on his Instagram. It was a parody movie poster called “The Deplorables,” where the Expendables’ Stallone was replaced with Donald Trump, and to the right was a Rare Trump Pepe. A variation of this image had already been posted to subReddit “The_Donald” three days ago. In that lineup, The Deplorables were, from left to right, Steve Bannon, David Clarke, Bruce Willis, Steve Sailer, Chuck Norris, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Mike Pence, Milo Yiannopoulos, a “Rare Tactical Pepe”, and Julian Assange.

“@codyave: @drudgereport @BreitbartNews @Writeintrump “You Can’t Stump the Trump” https://t.co/0xITB7XeJV pic.twitter.com/iF6S05se2w”— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2015

It is not the first time Trump or his family have shared a Pepe meme on their social media channels. Donald Trump Sr tweeted this one (above) over a year ago. If you’ve never heard of Pepe the Frog or Rare Pepe you might have a life outside the internet. But rest assured, he is a familiar face to many people as he stems from a cartoon published in 2005. He is so familiar in fact, that celebrities have been tweeting him for years.

Hillary Clinton’s vocal supporter, Katy Perry, has tweeted Pepe memes in the past. (archive) Nicki Minaj posted a twerking Pepe to Instagram, joking about trying to get her followers count back up. Even Motherboard reported on Pepe’s popularity, and “normies ruining everything.”

Australian jet lag got me like pic.twitter.com/kriAAd6mZe— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) November 8, 2014

Considering the years of coverage and usage by mainstream culture, it’s a downright head scratcher the Clinton campaign would now try to label Pepe as somehow being “neo-nazi.” And yet Hillary Clinton’s campaign has done just that, responding to the most recent Trump Pepe-posting with this “Pepe the Frog explainer” article on the Hillary Clinton website. In it, they declare Pepe The Frog “a symbol associated with white supremacy.” The page then attempts to explain who Pepe is. And it’s just as awkward as when brands like Red Lobster try to use bae. Or when Steve Buscemi asks “how do you do fellow kids?”

Mainstream journalists, who are also not known for being in touch, took the “White supremacy” ball and ran with it as gospel. The Independent, has reported on Clinton’s attack on Trump for posting Pepe, while the Daily Dot interviewed Pepe’s creator, who believes this Trump phase will soon pass. Amusingly, The Independent believes the film poster parodied is actually called “The Deplorables,” and not The Expendables, which only proved the out-of-touch theory. They also seem to pin the Pepe controversy on… Gamergate, as they describe Pepe as “a cartoon amphibian which became controversial late last year after a group of gamers worked to associate it with Nazi propaganda.” We’ve discussed Gamergate in 2014 here on Adland. Back then we warned that insulting consumers shrinks the market. In this case, Hillary is seemingly doing a Romney – her “basket of deplorables” comment could be as bad for her as Romney’s 47% comment was to his campaign – but squared. What will insulting voters do to her “market”?

From hillaryclinton.com

Just curious: Who else is in this photo?
Notably, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who believes the government was behind the 9/11 (and that Newtown was “completely fake”), and Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, whose racism and bigotry is so egregious that Twitter banned him from using their site.
This is horrifying.
Yes.
What can I do?
Vote.

It took no time at all for the Internet to respond. In this image, a Pepe version of the Clinton page reverses the situation. Here, Pepe The Frog explains that Hillary Clinton’s “H” logo is a symbol for Islamic Terrorism, as it depicts two planes flying through the World Trade Center. For Pepe fans, this is just as plausible as Pepe being a symbol of white supremacy. In other words: one hundred percent never, never, never, not at all.

Just curious who else is in the photo behind her?
Cucks.
This is horrifying.
Yes.
What can I do?
(Ends on a Pepe the Frog Trump image)

image from sli.mg.

Back in the “Vote as if your life depended on it,” days, you had one chance to resonate. Now, candidates like Trump can do it on a daily basis. And while the official Trump campaign uses more traditional attack ads in paid media space, the real news headlines are coming from earned media. Social media. CNN reported on the “white supremacy” frog, and soon most mainstream media followed, without bothering to research the meme’s origin.

And such is the internet 2016 that now The Pepe The frog Wikipedia Page is having an edit war on their hands where editors are debating whether to insert the “white supremacy” new history of Pepe. In other words, history isn’t being written by the winner any more, but by who has the biggest agenda. And Wikipedia is the center journalists go to for their research.

In a war between internet memes and mainstream media, who do you think will win?

Mick Mahoney said: “It matters that we encourage the next generation of creative talent to be brave. That we, as the chief creative officers, executive creative directors and creative directors, create the working environment for them to be able to smack the world in the face with their creative brilliance. Encourage them to be in our faces daily with their awesomeness. Hopefully, the launch of the new format Cream will inspire all of us to do just that.”

(Keyword related: Cream magazine that launched over ten years ago)

What are those kittens about on the tube? THIS. pic.twitter.com/NYaOHi67Ai— Nils Leonard (@nilsleonard) September 14, 2016

Wait what? Yes, this is your reminder that those words aren’t Banksy’s. He published them in a book around 2002, it was called “Cut It Out” and was a self-published collection of his drawings and stencils. Banksy shortened the end paragraphs and changed it from first- to second-person perspective, and then added Crap Hound to a list of credits in the back of the book, along with other sources and photo credits. The problem was that there were no numbers on the pages so the end credits became non-specific, and the tumblr-generation who later found the book ran with the assumption that the essay was Banksy’s and not the words of Sean Tejaratchi, writer in Crap Hound magazine who published the essay back in 1999.

Sean Tejaratchi knew the internet had moved on, but posted on his website the full explanation of what happened to anyone digging deeper into the story. I’m just doing my part in bringing it back to the surface, as the internet seemingly will never separate these word from Banksy now. I realize “Banksy stole the quote!” is much more dramatic and satisfying than “Banksy made a poor stylistic choice in his book layout, causing confusion years later! He attempted to inform me but had the wrong address!” The man’s not an imbecile. This would have been an absurdly clumsy and doomed attempt at plagiarism. I will also say that in my recent, limited contact with Banksy, he’s gone out of his way to be clear, kind, and genuine, in every way the exact opposite of a twat.

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
– Banksy