Last week, the official BJP Telangana handle shared a video on X encapsulating the history of 'reclaiming Lord Ram's birthplace' in Ayodhya, dating back 2000 years. The video, featuring Pepe the Frog, presents a visual narrative spanning from the Mughal era to the Babri Masjid's demolition and culminating with the Supreme Court's 2019 verdict sanctioning the construction of the temple at the mosque's former site.
Within the video, the animated character reverently bows before the statue of Ram in Ayodhya. As Pepe touches the statue's foot, flashes of the 'struggle' unfold with visuals of Mughal kings and karsevaks.
The construction of Ram mandir in Ayodhya was one of the promises made by the incumbent BJP before coming to power. And the party has been reiterating the fulfillment of this promise at several instances in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In another instance, the official handle of BJP, on April 6, posted a video on X also featuring Pepe the Frog and highlighting what has changed in Ayodhya. Captioned as, "Jai Shri Ram, Naye Bharat ka Naya Ayodhya", the video talks about how the holy city has developed since the construction of temple. Layered with PM Modi's speech on Lord Ram, the video features the airport, railway station, solar-powered street lights and the improved roadways of the city.
Although these posts may appear to be typical election campaign videos, the inclusion of the 'Pepe the Frog' character imbues them with more significance than just another ordinary meme.
Why is Pepe considered problematic?
The cheerful amphibian with its distinctive beady eyes, known as Pepe, first appeared in 2005 as a central character in Matt Furie's comic "Boy's Club", a modest underground hit featuring four anthropomorphic friends who typically relax and have a good time.
Pepe took its initial strides toward internet fame in 2008 when a panel featuring him was shared as a reaction image on the online forum 4chan. Almost instantly, it caught on as a trend.
4chan is an online imageboard website where users can post anonymously. It gained notoriety for its culture of anonymity, freedom of speech, and several controversial content.
Users on 4chan started sharing Pepe more frequently, with some adding their own creative touches. Pepe quickly evolved into a versatile meme, capable of conveying a wide spectrum of emotions, including happiness, sadness, smugness, and anger. It became a symbol that resonated with a broad range of feelings.
Subsequently, the Alt-Right movement, comprising a diverse array of right-wing social media users, started circulating altered versions of Pepe on various social platforms. This movement, characterised as an alternative to mainstream conservatism, has often targeted Jewish Americans and depicted white individuals as victims of oppression.
In October 2015, Trump retweeted a caricature portraying him as Pepe the Frog, accompanied by the caption "You Can't Stump the Trump". Prior to this, only marginal users on social media shared iterations of the frog depicting Klan members. However, this post served as the trigger that bolstered the far right's appropriation of Pepe. Subsequently, more racially-charged frog images surfaced, particularly on Twitter (now X), leading to the emergence of the #FrogTwitter movement.
Once again, the frog grabbed attention in September 2016 when Hillary Clinton remarked that a significant portion of Trump's supporters could be categorised as belonging to a "basket of deplorables".
Responding to which Donald Trump Jr., the son of the Republican candidate, shared a modified version of the movie poster for "The Expendables," featuring Pepe alongside his father and other conservative figures, dubbed "The Deplorables".
Shortly after this Clinton's campaign website denounced Pepe and called it "a symbol associated with white supremacy". The cartoon was then added to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)'s database of hate symbols. Founded in 1913, ADL is an international Jewish non-governmental organisation that fights against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry by monitoring and exposing extremist groups.
According to the anti-bigotry organisation, "racists and haters" appropriated a popular internet meme and "twisted its meaning". Other symbols deemed offensive by ADL include the Swastika and the "Blood Drop Cross" associated with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Memes: Shaping perceptions beyond pictures
According to Inga Trauthig, head of research of the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement, memes convey meaning that goes beyond what is shown in the actual picture. "Some memes like Pepe the Frog have come to international prominence and can serve as a tool to connect like-minded communities across the globe even. Using the Pepe the Frog is certainly intentional by the people who embedded the meme into their communication efforts," she said.
Talking about the power yielded by memes in today age of Internet, research scholar Nawa Fatima, said, "Today memes are infectious cultural patterns that spread from one mind to another, influencing and molding the attitudes and behaviours of a social group directly."
As per Fatima, the video meme shared by the BJP’s Telangana unit on the occasion of Ram Navmi, perfectly coincides with the general elections in the country, when political parties are most desperate to make every vote count. She said, "In the midst of this, sharing a meme featuring Pepe the Frog character, which has been associated with various alt-right groups, conveys a clear message. It’s not only irresponsible, rather it seems intentionally provocative."
The video meme is meticulously edited to reflect upon the victory of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, but it does so via the route of hate, she added.
Adding on the same lines, Javed Wani, assistant professor at Ambedkar University, also said that memes are not merely surface-level frivolity. "In the internet age, they trigger inter-group solidarity (across Hindutva organisations of all shades and colours) and are direct calls to action with a supplementary cause of polarisation," he said.
Memes, ethics and politics
Talking about flexibilities of ethics around using memes in political campaigns, Wani said, "Memes have set a new threshold when it comes to ethical considerations for political campaigning, making ethical boundaries porous to the extent that the fine lines between dignified messaging, political accountability and transparency of discourse have been blurred."
According to Fatima, it is the responsibility of political parties who are appropriating internet memes, especially with such controversial origins, to dig deeper into the context in which it has been used earlier. "Overt usage of such memes can normalise hate speech and bigotry which should be avoided at all costs by the political parties in question," she said.
One must realise that any piece of content on the internet will always be on the internet, hence the political parties must also think of the long-term impact of posting such controversial memes, the research scholar added.
In the light of the challenging political scenario presented by the usage of memes, Wani advocated for the need of a strong public policy that "champions ethical standards of political engagement and consistently argues for a stricter stance against such practices".