Pepe Punch

Where Pepe came from

Matt Furie created Pepe for the comic “Boy’s Club,” which began to appear in 2005. It follows a group of monster characters: Pepe, Brett, Andy, and Landwolf. One panel in which Pepe says “Feels good man” spread on the 4chan forum in early 2008 and became the first big meme with a frog.

In 2015–2016 the character was drawn into political disputes, and the author objected to such use. This story concerns the Pepe image as a whole and has nothing to do with the joke about the punch: the version with the fist is used as an ordinary everyday reaction.

What is shown in the picture

The green drawn Pepe is shown at an angle, as if mid-jump or mid-swing. The head on the left is turned toward the viewer: half-closed eyes, a satisfied smirk with orange-pink lips. The torso is disproportionately powerful, with drawn muscles. One arm is raised, the other pulled back and blurred, as if in fast motion. The background is white.

The contrast between a good-natured face and a fighter’s body is the main source of the laugh: the expression says “I’m having fun,” while the pose promises a blow.

The history of the punch version

This version is known as the Pepe Punch. It combines the version of Pepe with a smug face (Smug Frog) and a punching pose associated with Vegeta from Dragon Ball. The earliest use found dates to August 13, 2018, on 4chan, in the /biz/ board. The image then spread across different forums: in November 2019 a hand-drawn version appeared on 4chan and DeviantArt, in December the picture scored thousands of upvotes on Reddit, and in January 2020 it was shown on Twitter.

The author of the original picture is unknown, and the dates mentioned show only the earliest examples found.

Caption examples

“When they said my code doesn’t need changing anymore, and it crashes.” Pepe expresses readiness to deal with the problem with his fists.

“Me when someone comments on text I wrote over three nights.” Here the punch is aimed at an imaginary critic.

“Dear alarm clock, we need to talk.” An object instead of a person makes the aggression safe and funny.

“I was just told I’m wrong on the internet.” The classic use: readiness to join an argument while knowing it is pointless.

How to use it

The meme suits a joking “threat” to someone imaginary: a broken printer, a Monday, your own laziness. It is better not to address such a picture to a real person: it reads as a declaration of a fight, not a joke.

It works well on small captions and in replies to pictures where you need to convey excitement. If you want a warm rather than combative tone, choose another version of Pepe.

It is also worth keeping the picture itself in mind: because of the blurred swing and the white background, the picture is easy to cut out and overlay on other frames, for example to “burst into” a chat or a collage, and then the punch is aimed at whoever is in the second image. This way the meme turns from a single line into a small scene.