So you’ve heard someone say pepega and you don’t know what it means. Many others have no idea about Pepega. Every day, many words originate on the internet and it is hard to keep track of them. But that’s not stopping Pepega from going viral.
What is Papega? This funny frog you see in regular dank memes is called Pepega. Probably, this is not the first time you’ve heard or seen Pepega, but now you want to know what it is.
Curiosity always gets the better of us.
We’ve got you everything you need to know about Pepega and how you can use it in your daily life. Let’s keep up with the trends, shall we?
Pepega’s Origin
Flashback Time.
Rewind to 2018. It was the 8th day in April.
Discord, now a popular digital distribution platform was still in its initial interface then.
A user adew posted :pepega to post the meme, but he missed the second colon. Another user Sachi followed it by posting the emote of a distorted image of Pepe The Frog.
(Typing any slang in the format :slang: will post the emote into such platforms’ chatbox.)
Thus, Pepega became an overnight sensation.
On that very day, Pepega was added to FrankerFacez by adew, a Twitch enhancement suite where users can add custom emotes that make socializing more fun to other users.
Emojis differ from emotes in the above feature. For emojis to be available to the public, they have to be sanctioned by Unicode. But emotes do not have any governing body and do not need demand validation (except for the approval process on Twitch).
What is Twitch?
Twitch is a video live streaming service, owned by Amazon. Viewers can watch live or via video on demand.
Gamers play games of their subscribers’ choice and stream it live while the subscribers comment about it in the chat box.
That may sound boring to those who aren’t much into gaming, but the popularity of Twitch proves otherwise.
It has more than 15 million daily active users and has raised more than $30 million for charity despite being a relatively recent platform.
Twitch has a large number of emoticons and they are known as emotes.
Emotes On Twitch
Pepega is not the only emote on Twitch.
Kappa is the most used Twitch emote. Jebaited and Trihard are a few other popular emotes on this platform.
Pepe the Frog is another emote that has several variations like FeelsBadMan, FeelsGoodMan, Monkers, and PepeHands.
That’s a way too long list to go deep into each.
Types Of Twitch Emotes
Twitch emotes are primarily of two types. Free and subscription-based.
Streamers on Twitch create emotes for brand marketing or to make their personality popular.
Subscription-based emotes, shortly called sub emotes form the majority of emotes as they will allow the creators to earn revenue when their subscribers purchase them.
To be able to create sub emotes and put them for sale, streamers should reach the Twitch affiliate status. This is done in tiers depending on the number of subscribers a streamer has. The minimum requirement is 15 subscriber points (not subscribers).
The streamer can then create and add emotes to his channel following Twitch’s guidelines.
The dimensions of Twitch emotes are of 1:1 ratio, and the size of the file should be less than 25 kb. Creators have to submit their emotes in three dimensions, 28*28, 56*56, and 112*112.
Twitch has the right to reject or remove any emote if there’s any violation of its policy.
Anyone who purchases emotes from a streamer can use them anywhere on the Twitch platform and not only in the streamer’s chatbox.
Pepe The Frog
As we already learned, Pepega is a distorted image of Pepe The Frog and Pepe emotes have many variations.
What made Pepe The Frog so famous that even its distorted image went viral?
Pepe The Frog first appeared in the comic Boys’ Club by Matt Furie and had a catchphrase “Feels Good Man” which later became a Twitch emote. Pepe attained fame through the platforms MySpace, 4chat, and Gaia Online. It was an in-joke on these platforms until its popularity spread around the world.
Later, users created memes featuring Pepe, called ‘rare Pepes’ and the sound reached Hollywood where even celebrities like Katy Perry started sharing those rare Pepes.
Some 4chan members went as far as creating a fictional country Kekistan and a religion called Kekism inspired by Pepe The Frog. Kekistan’s subreddit had the description “There’s only one God (Kek) and Pepe is his prophet.”
Pepe The Frog was loved by children and youngsters. In fact, Pepe made an appearance in the Hong Kong anti-extradition protests as a symbol of youth’s participation in it.
Another meme character Wojak, also known as Feels Guy was paired with Pepe The Frog in some instances although Wojak is melancholic.
Watch the film “Feels Good Man” to know how Pepe attained fame and how he had to be eventually killed by its creator.
Yes, Pepe had a heartbreaking end due to the wrong usage by some netizens. We’ll save those reasons for some other time.
Pepega And Forsen
Back to Pepega’s story!
Forsen is a popular Twitch streamer from Sweden and has been active since 2011. He is well-known for playing Hearthstone and has a loyal fanbase who call themselves Forsenboys.
Forsen played a significant role in bringing Pepega to fame.
He added Pepega to his channel’s emotes list, five days after it was added to FrankerFacez. Elojudx, a Redditor posted this news to /r/forsen.
His fans were so displeased with the addition that they spammed his chatroom with Pepega emotes.
This is where Pepega’s usage took another turn. His subscribers inserted a horn beside the Pepega emote and wrote “For Saaaaan”, indicating that they were calling Forsen in a silly tone.
That seems a little harsh, but Pepega eventually saw good times.
DJ FGT went on to make the song FOOR SAAAAN in a tone that matches Pepega’s appearance. It is available on YouTube and Spotify.
In October of the same year, Twitch users created another Pepaga variant called Pepaga megaphone whose main aim is to scream Forsen loudly in a stupid voice through a megaphone.
An example of how one thing leads to the other.
Usage
The viral internet slang Pepaga is used to express that something is dumb or stupid. To be more exact it is used as the R word and is considered pejorative for mentally handicapped people.
If you want to send it to a friend or someone you know, make sure the other one shares the same sense of humor as yours. Else, they may get offended.
If you’re not close friends, you calling them dumb or the R word will not at all go smooth.
In Twitch chat, the broadcaster is flooded with Pepega emotes by users when he/she misses an easy shot or does something foolish.
Pepega has gained popularity among gamers and online communities due to its liquid face that expresses natural humor with a stupid touch.
Regular gamers and active internet users take Pepega emote or jokes or memes as a comic expression, though.
Next to Twitch, Reddit and Tumblr are other common platforms on which Pepega is frequently posted. Twitch users consider Reddit as their second home. So, that explains it.
Fun Fact: Fighting Pepegas was a professional Dota 2 team and also a DPC participant. Later, they changed their name to a professional sounding name, Fighting PandaS.
Inspirations
Pepega due to its popularity, inspired several artistic works.
Pepega the Song
The artist of this song might have loved Pepega so much that he decided to write and make a song about it. It has simple drum beats and a catchy melody.
The lyrics of the song are memes on their own.
Even this song did not leave Forsen Twitch channel’s contribution in making Pepega popular.
A line in this song goes as “When you watch Forsen’s stream in fullscreen mode…Pepega!”
Pepega the Song garnered 138 thousand views on Youtube. The comments are quite funny too.
Pepega Penguin
Pepega penguin is not directly related to Pepega.
In Twitch stream’s VR Sicko mode, broadcasters are given penguin avatars, and they can capture their facial expressions on the avatar.
This captured emotion is known as Pepega Penguin as the mouth looks like the compressed mouth of Pepe in Pepega.
This Pepega Penguin is also featured in memes like its inspiration, Pepega.
Pepega Claps
Emotes are often combined to make a new emote. Pepega emote is combined with EZ claps and they’re together called Pepega Claps.
And that should solve all your questions and doubts about Pepega.
What’s your take on Pepega?