Cult of Kek

Definition and image

The Cult of Kek is an internet meme in the form of a fictional religion. It's built on worship of Pepe the Frog, a character with half-closed eyes and a wide grin. In the image linked to the entry, Pepe's face is placed above the silhouette of a person with raised arms against a sunset, conveying an ironic religious gesture: the image becomes an object of veneration.

The genre imitates religious texts and rituals, but the meme itself is a joke. It's usually irony aimed at fanaticism and at internet communities' tendency to turn pictures into symbols, so it matters for the reader to grasp both the serious form and its parody.

The name

The word "kek" comes from the English "kek," used to denote laughter. In gaming communities it became fixed as onomatopoeia for laughter and later turned into a separate piece of internet slang. The name is linked to its consonance with the name of Kuk, the ancient Egyptian deity of darkness, though the original source of that connection is not known, so this is only one version.

The choice of name is telling: it sounds like the name of an ancient cult, but it's formed from a piece of contemporary slang. That shift across the timescale is exactly what the joke is built on.

Pepe and its creator

Pepe the Frog appeared in Matt Furie's comic "Boy's Club," which began being published in the mid-2000s. The character was conceived as an ordinary comic-book hero, and its online fame grew later, once the image started spreading on forums and social networks.

Furie has repeatedly said that the character's original meaning had nothing to do with hatred or politics. Later, various groups started using Pepe's image for their own purposes. In 2016 the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added it to its list of hate symbols, which Canadian media reported on as well. This episode belongs to the symbol's later fate, not to the original joke.

Spread

The Cult of Kek took shape in 2016 in English-language communities as part of Pepe's broader story. At that time the concept of the fictional country Kekistan and the image of the cult became a tool for irony and provocation in discussions. The exact date the cult was first posted is not known.

Communities used the image in jokes, pictures, and comments, after which the meme spread beyond its original platforms. The scale of its spread and the specific channels are not known.

In everyday use, the expression serves as a playful label for any excessive, deliberately solemn worship of something unserious. Example phrases: "Let us praise coffee, for it grants the morning" or "Brothers and sisters, today is Friday." The parodic solemnity turns a mundane trifle into an object of "faith," and that is exactly how the meme amuses the reader.

Caveat about context

The meme is tied to a later, politically charged context, so it's important to distinguish the original joke from the later meanings of the image. The description here is factual: the meme appeared as a joke, its symbol was later appropriated by various groups, and that's a separate story that isn't reducible to the catalog's text.