SXSW Review: 'Feels Good Man' Offers Contemporary Lessons in Semiotics
The gentle voice of cartoonist Matt Furie narrates as he draws curved lines and rounded shapes to form an amphibian face. A few practiced strokes of a marker result in a perfectly drawn Pepe the Frog, a content grin on his face. Anyone with an internet connection probably recognizes Pepe, and everyone, for better or worse, associates him with something. Feels Good Man, directed by Furie’s friend Arthur Jones, documents a genie’s escape from the bottle without getting lost in any one of the mind boggling chapter of Pepe’s story. Considering it’s about an internet meme, the film has a very serious grasp on the power of semiotics and works hard to educate its audience about modern modes of propaganda.
It begins by outlining the dangers of decontextualization of phrases and images from their origins, in this case Furie’s comic Boys Club. A comic about four cool dudes who smoke weed, eat pizza, and play video games together features Pepe’s friend asking why he pees with his pants pulled down and Pepe responding casually with “feels good man.” As Furie uploaded the comic to Myspace, he unwittingly offered both the frog and this phrase up for use.
But without any relation to the original text, the simplicity and expressiveness of this little frog is something anyone could project onto, and subsequently relate to a peaceful smiling Pepe, or a crying Pepe, or a smirking Pepe. He is a passive avatar, susceptible to ranges of emotional and paradigms, and when left to the uncontrollable devices of the internet, was hijacked as a symbol of white supremacy and fascism. He was coopted by the likes of Alex Jones and Richard Spencer, and ultimately winded up on the Anti Defamation League’s list of hate symbols. And Pepe truly is the perfect example of semiotics theory run amok; signs are images that communicate a meaning without using language that any conditioned reader will understand. And once a sign is established, its meaning is nearly impossible to change.
It is rare to see such a wholistic, honest, and expert approach to presenting the hive mind of the internet in film form. The film presents an explanation of what a meme is that even the less internet savvy could understand, accompanied with graphically mesmerizing animation.
It references Richard Dawkins’ work The Selfish Gene, which postulates that while genes pass along inherent biological trait, culture is passed along through memes. Not just cheeseburger cats or steamed hams, but clothing, literature, and technology, all are memes, surviving through sharing and copying. These ideas that have been studied, mutated, adapted, and reproduced memetically to become persisting aspects of culture. The best memes rise to the surface though replication, though few have undergone so much mutation or hold such staying power as Pepe.
Pepe’s first adopters were the “NEET” (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), troll, and incel culture built through 4chan. Suffering from isolation and alienation of their own making, they related to the ugly little creature and propped him up as a uniting symbol. But 4chan was not so insular that Pepe could not escape that specific community- soon he would be across dozens of platforms, drawing in wider and wider demographics of users, all looking back into 4chan. To rebuff this perceived invasion of space, NEETs purposefully made Pepe’s as repulsive to the “normies” as possible, and sheltered themselves in anonymity. The ambiguity of the memes means there could be no course of punishment because there’s no proving if the sentiment is genuine, or truly just a joke. Feels Good Man presents its prime examples in disturbing, skin crawling explicitness. It also takes care to break down how trolls come to power through escalating the reactionary content of Pepe, because the more it upsets those on the outside and anyone resisting it, the stronger it makes those responsible for the repulsive imagery and hate speech.
The documentary treats its subjects with a reserved curiosity, withholding judgement for the sake of the informational exchange. The documentary dives far down into the recesses of this complex system of values, even “Rare Pepe” cryptocurrency communities, but resists being bogged down by any of these outlandish offshoots of the story. Its collection of talking heads include 4chan users, a ‘Pepe Ca$h’ cryptocurrency millionaire, a Trump presidential campaign manager, and an expert in the occult. By lending legitimate credence to each of them, its possible to decipher the frenzied ascension of Pepe to the mythological cult of “Kek,” in conjunction with Donald Trump’s rise to power. It pieces together how 4chan users and the alt- right use Pepe specifically to cause harm and sow chaos for chaos’ sake in relation to the 2016 presidential election. Trump’s participation in the Pepe phenomenon, both explicitly through tweets and through white supremacist dogwhistles, mark a significant turning point- when 4chan’s Pepe manifested into reality. The film takes its leap from analyzing internet culture to the American political landscape with confidence, and it sticks the landing exactly as intended.
Feels Good Man is as much a documentary about the creation as it is about its creator; the audience is privilege to Matt Furie’s outlook, personality and internal moral compass over a couple years. He is as amiable and innocuous as his original cartoon, which intended to capture contentment in one’s unique quirks and male friendships akin to Furie’s own. But his name is still frequently attached to what Pepe has been transformed into, and the regret is omnipresent in his life. His roommate’s Pepe tattoo is cause for embarrassment, and a garage full of Pepe merchandise that can ever be put up for sale stands in for thousands of dollars lost. Furie’s genuine attempts to kill off the monstrous Pepe only enforced the rule of “death of the author,” only works to further Pepe into martyrdom for the trolls. Even Furie’s creativity as an artist is being undercut by the cartoon frog.
Some might argue Furie’s emphasis on sowing kindness can be perceived as too passive in the face of such bastardization, but then who expects a mild manned, goofy young father in San Francisco to be equipped to combat the entire alt-right? Especially when he’s just trying to share positivity and illustrate books for kids. And ultimately, we can see that he is fighting an unwinnable battle agains the internet- but there are some small victories to be had that allow a person to hold on to the hopes that things won’t always be so bad. The film concludes as Pepe is given the unforeseen chance to rise out of the pits of corruption and be given radical new meaning yet again across the globe.
There’s no saying what will happen to the image of Pepe next, but the film has succeeded in capturing a fascinating phenomenon that also serves as a cautionary tale. It is a sufficiently frightening example for creatives and web users to heed, warning of the quickly diminishing boundaries between online and reality. On a technical level, its solid documentary filmmaking that neatly parses all of its dizzyingly outrageous elements without ever losing the mission. Thanks to some eye- catchingly expressive and poppy original animation sequences, Pepe is brought to life with his Boys Club bros, and made relatable to the audience once again. Feels Good Man compiles dread, outrage, awkward humor, genuine pity, and optimism all into a single experience. Anyone with an internet connection knows the feeling.
Supplemental:
Special recognition should go to video collective Everything is Terrible!, credited in the documentary for their help in the digitization of thousands of fragments of internet. For a masterclass in high-volume editing, found footage composition, and the twisted ingenuity of human imagination, turn to any of their own feature creations. My personal recommendation is The Great Satan.
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