There has not been a single moment I’ve seen that's captured just how much the cultural mentality in America has changed than in Feels Good Man (2020). While I have experienced 31 years of life, I found myself entranced by something that somehow seems foreign now. During a pivotal scene in Arthur Jones’ searing, essential documentary, he discusses the rise of Pepe the Frog as a counterculture figure. In theory, he was originally created to reflect post-college malaise. Despite spouting the words “feels good, man” while urinating with his pants down, he came to symbolize cynicism, a counter-revolution that would place him on a hate symbol list. He was an attack on feel good content that was shared on websites like Instagram, reflecting a time when happiness was somehow trendy.
Even if I was an adult throughout the 2010s, I became personally surprised by the reality that there was a time when it was cool to be happy. I’ve lived through so many years of people reaching December 31st now and saying “worst year ever” even sarcastically that made me believe nihilism was always trendy. Considering that we’re only a few days removed from the president being impeached for a second time on one side and Inauguration Day on the other, it’s amazing to note how things have changed and how much I really miss the idea of human decency.
And the worst part? It’s not exactly Boy’s Club creator Matt Furie’s fault.
Watching Feels Good Man first and foremost from an artists’ standpoint, this whole thing is a nightmare. With limited exceptions, most artists use the medium to express themselves in a manner that is ultimately productive. They share their ideas through stories and paintings that are meant to unite people in a search for empathy. The world is a better place because of how fiction can preserve not history but the perspective of long-deceased moments in ways that a history book would make too impersonal. I wouldn’t argue it’s always the truest, but it is an essential craft and something that I’m proud to be part of, hoping to resonate in some small way when I leave this mortal coil.
This is why Feels Good Man ultimately shook me to my core. I’ll get into specifically why in a moment, but it all boils down to this basic concept. As great as art can be, it can be misconstrued, used improperly by people who never understood the correct interpretation. If enough people are convinced, the notoriety will overshadow the good intentions. Pepe the Frog is the worst case scenario, being promoted from indie comic to meme to a name that was shouted (with negative intent) at a Hillary Clinton rally. The internet made him notorious, never giving Furie a chance to defend himself. Every minute Pepe has been on the internet, the damage grew exponentially to the point that you’d be forgiven for thinking that Furie was promoting violent incel culture.
How do you control your voice at this point? I am by no means a popular writer. I have flirted with bigger things over the past decade of my career, but nothing that has really permeated the culture. I am still striving to find what I will be known for, but I wonder even then if my ultimate legacy will be for something symbolic of my ideas and beliefs, or if I will have one quote that’s taken out of context, forever labeling me as this imbecile who made the world a terrible place. I would hate to do that. My writing, by nature, has sought to find some form of optimism in even the darkest of situations. To me, that’s where the most rewarding challenge usually lies.
And I do think that this sums from the same thing that leads to Pepe the Frog’s downfall. As I think back on recent history, I become horrified to learn that 2016 was FIVE years ago already. Part of it is just how much I’ve achieved in that time. Another thing is the horror of how cynicism has overshadowed everything good in the world, making Netflix produce garbage like Death to 2020 to make the obvious joke that, yes, 2020 was the worst. It’s become acceptable and unfortunately so much has happened that the feel good Instagram posts now feel like a fantasy. Were we ever that way? If we knew what lied ahead, would we all have been doomsday preppers instead?
I do place a lot of the blame on the familiar targets. The 2016 American presidential election was a traumatizing event. I had this faith in democracy that was in some ways based off of not being all that politically active and believing that the most ethical candidate always won. I cringe at people who still reference the Access Hollywood video because I know as terrible as it is to hear a man joke about sexual assault, I also remember going to a breakfast that week with my grandfather’s older conservative friends and them just saying it was a joke. Also, he’s done so much worse that a colorless comment seems quaint by comparison.
Still, it was a fascinating time for American discourse because of how divided we didn’t believe that we were. Everyone thought that they were right, and I only have the added benefit of not being aware of most of the toxicity. Sure, I’m aware of the aftermath, where a day after the election I heard on ABC 7 that hate crimes were already on the rise. I’m aware of everything awful that’s happened since. But to think of 2016, in general, is a depressing thought that I don’t want to ever hear from again. It brought out the worst in us, and the fact that the most toxic names are still assaulting our attention spans doesn’t help the matters. It’s not a good sign when the month following the 2016 election featured a rise in anxiety and depression which has only gotten worse since.
So the question is, how can we even discuss this era in a meaningful way? I think there’s a good argument to be made for Miss Americana (2020), Boys State (2020), and Totally Under Control (2020), but it just can’t compare to what Feels Good Man says on a fundamental level. It’s not a deconstruction of a presidency, but maybe explains how it could even happen in the first place. In an era where social media is the norm, going viral is more important than being right. To be shocking is to suck up attention away from altruism and honesty. The president has that in spades, proving his gifts as a huckster to appeal to masses with punchy phrases and impulse actions that have no long-term use.
Pepe the Frog is similar in that he was popular for urinating with his pants down. He was something akin to the modern shitposting, and that was supposed to be it. However, the image spoke to people in ways, not unlike that “This Is Fine” dog or that cat being yelled at by a woman. These images speak to our imagination, asking us to repurpose them in our own image. They become our currency, and it’s unfair that Pepe the Frog eventually landed in the wrong hands simply because he had that kind of face, where he looked simultaneously innocent and devious.
It only grew worse from there. What’s more amazing than Furie’s downfall is how Jones manages to convey something more reflective of living in the digital age. Even if you change the subject, it’s likely that this can paint the downfall of so many artists throughout the past 10 years. Maybe they wind up better than Furie, but these creations take on a life of their own in ways that remove the humanity behind it, lacking any bigger context. When a frog who was created solely for cheap humor becomes a universal figure of hate, one has to wonder what they did wrong with their life. The uncertainty of it all, that anything can now be bastardized into awfulness, makes it difficult to want to pursue your passions at all.
Feels Good Man is unnerving because of this. It isn’t just the story of a meme, but the way mob mentality has the power to now sway public opinion. Even innocent forms of antagonism are now weaponized if it spreads far enough. They inform politics, creating a primitive form of Q’Anon where people unify over base impulse, not seeking to engage with anything that rejects their opinion. If anything, this perfectly reflects the rise of how the internet isolates us all. We are more connected than ever, but it’s even more difficult to find fact and fiction in all of this. By the time that Furie gets into a defamation lawsuit with conspiracist Alex Jones and details these really juvenile jokes, it’s become so surreal that anything seems possible.
The story is sad not only because of how Pepe the Frog no longer has innocent intentions. It’s also because it reflects an artist struggling to have any control over his creation. Furie sits there, defeated by the growing reality that this is it. No matter what else he does in his career, he will always be seen as the creator of hate speech. He didn’t do anything to bring it on. He didn’t hop on any bandwagon with vibrant commentary. All he did was create art about a urinating frog. It’s a tragicomic joke unto itself that ends with him attempting to murder this character once and for all in comic form.
And still, Pepe the Frog lived on. He continued to be used in awful ways. Even when Furie attempted to rebrand Pepe as a figure of hope, there was an underlying sense that it would fail. People have tried to make him something more humane since, but it’s clear that kindness is too effortful. Evil will always try to beat it down and revel in misery.
That is how we’ve gotten to the past five years. I commend everyone who made this documentary with such painful, meticulous detail that chronicles so much in such a short time. I haven’t seen anything as heartbreaking all year. Maybe it’s because as a writer I relate to this struggle for relevance, to believe that what I’m creating has any profound meaning. It’s also because I still feel the weight of 2016’s election in everyday life, where films like Joker (2019) are praised for cheap answers like “everything sucks and there’s nothing we can do about it.” There’s no effort to better ourselves.
It’s how we get to the terrorist attacks on January 6, 2021. While there were rallies that helped fuel the cause, it was a hate crime formed through the internet. There is documented evidence to back this up. Even if this one meme maybe has no connection, it explains how appealing that mentality is. Who doesn’t want their base impulses validated, feeling connected to someone via recognizable iconography? Hate is easy because it requires so little thought. It doesn’t care if feelings are hurt, or if they improperly use Captain America iconography in an event where a man was bludgeoned by a pole sporting The American Flag. It’s all about chaos, and the fact that we’re all susceptible really sucks.
As this administration FINALLY comes to an end next Wednesday, I am thankful that I caught this at the tail-end of it. It’s one of the most damning encapsulations of the past five years, embodying where everything went wrong. I can only hope that noticing the problem will lead to positive changes, where we can begin to defend against potential corruption in the future. I’m of the mindset that everyone NEEDS to take a media studies class in high school if just to help differentiate fact and fiction. It feels useful now. Even then, the sad reality is that we’re at best decades off from reaching something resembling that.
Memes are hard to ignore. They’re quick and to the point. There’s no need to think too hard about them. If they’re done right, they’ll last in your subconscious for the rest of the life. Still, most will exist as this minor annoyance that is faded and forgotten, even losing its sting or impact. That is how the past five years have been. Long-term memory has become harder to control as more and more is lobbed at us. The tragedy is trying to not only figure out what’s important but remember and learning from the parts that seek to hurt us the most. How do you do that without being traumatized? The answer is so complicated, but I think this is the closest we’ve gotten to a more substantial answer to it.
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