The meme originated as a harmless character drawn by illustrator Matt Furie, who created the frog for a comic series called Boys Club , in 2005. But, during last year's presidential election cycle, the initially inoffensive character was used by the alt right (including by a certain faction of Trump supporters ) to illustrate racist, anti-immigrant, nationalist, and anti-Semitic ideals. The memes became so problematic that the Anti-Defamation League officially designated it as a hate symbol: "As the meme proliferated in online venues such as 4chan, 8chan and Reddit, which have many users who delight in creating racist memes and imagery, a subset of Pepe memes would come into existence that centered on racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted themes," according to the organization.