Latest news with #KnowYourMeme
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump and Pepe the Frog: 2016 campaign turned meme political. Then it became a hate symbol
President Donald Trump posted a graphic on social media with a subtle nod to a meme that was added to the Anti-Defamation League hate symbol database during the 2016 presidential election. A May 28 Truth Social post shows a black and white picture of Trump walking through a dark street with an on-image caption: "He's on a mission from God & nothing can stop what is coming." In the background of the picture is Pepe the Frog, a popular internet meme that started as a comic in 2005 but was embraced by far-right groups when Trump was first running for president. Some racist and antisemitic uses landed it on the hate symbol list, but ADL says it depends on the context. Pepe the Frog has also become a popular meme coin, and Trump's Truth Social post was shared by a $PEPE account on X, repeating the refrain, "nothing can stop what is coming." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's recent post. Why critics are alarmed: Trump shared an article with a pink triangle symbol Pepe the Frog started as a character from a comic series, "Boy's Club" by Matt Furie in 2005, according to Know Your Meme. While the somewhat sad-looking frog did not have racist or antisemitic origins, its proliferation through the internet as a meme led to its adaptation into something of a symbol for single men who felt they were on the social outskirts, Know Your Meme editor Brad Kim told the New York Times in 2016. But Kim said it became political when Trump shared a Trump-ified version of Pepe in October 2015. "Pepe plugged into the ideology of the alt-right because it was a reaction against the people they call 'normies,'" Kim told the New York Times. "Pepe had been a symbol of the disenfranchised, social outcasts. It was Trump's natural audience." In 2016, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe the Frog to its list of hate symbols, though the organization notes many uses of this meme are still not rooted in bigotry or hate. "The number of 'alt right' Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election," Pepe's ADL page states. "However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context." The ADL Center on Extremism's senior director of investigative research Carla Hill pointed out the "FruitSnacks" watermark on the graphic. Hill said it is a reference to a popular Truth Social account formerly associated with QAnon, the far-right movement that pushes the conspiracy theory that Trump is waging a secret war with a satanic "deep state." "Nothing can stop what is coming," is commonly seen as a QAnon slogan, Hill said. "The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist," the ADL page on Pepe states. "However, if the meme itself is racist or antisemitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes.' In another offshoot of internet culture, Pepe the Frog is now a meme coin, a form of cryptocurrency often seen as a collector's item. "$PEPE is a meme coin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return," a disclaimer on the website states. "There is no formal team or roadmap. the coin is completely useless and for entertainment purposes only." Trump also has a meme coin: $TRUMP. He recently hosted a dinner for the top purchasers of the coin, who together invested a total of $148 million in the coin. The dinner stirred ethics concerns. According to CoinMarketCap, $PEPE is the No. 25 most valuable crypto token and $TRUMP is No. 41. Contributing: Mike Snider, Zac Anderson and Joey Garrison, USA TODAY Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@ Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @ This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Who is Pepe the Frog? Donald Trump's Truth Social post, explained
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What Is ‘Gurting'? The Teen Slang Term That Actually Is (Somewhat) Related to Yogurt
Trying to understand things your Gen Z (and increasingly, Gen Alpha) kids say is a lose-lose situation. When they first start saying it, there's almost no way you can figure it out by context clues. When you finally do learn the definition, it's suddenly not cool at all anymore. It's the circle of life! Still, we do our best to help figure out the obscure meanings of popular slang, and one of the latest we've heard teens saying is 'gurting' or 'gurt.' It sounds like the world 'yogurt,' and it's actually tied — albeit loosely — to the popular breakfast food. In a time of memes, TikToks, and constantly-evolving internet culture, teen slang moves at breakneck speed. So to understand 'gurting,' you first have to look back at a (practically-ancient!) meme from all the way back in 2012. This is a joke with someone saying 'yogurt,' and a character named Gurt responds, 'Yo' as a pun on the word. This meme went viral in 2025, per Know Your Meme, thanks to videos by Juggtok — and from there, evolved even further. More from SheKnows Behind the 6-7 Trend - The Viral Song It Came From & Why Your Tween Loves To Say It on Repeat The outlet pointed to an April 2025 TikTok, explaining 'new underground slang word' referring to gurting. This user defined it as: 'When you do something that's very smart but also very dangerous.' People used this phrase/definition in videos of animals doing smart, yet dangerous things (risking it for the biscuit, if you will). Now, teens will say they are 'gurting' when they do something smart and dangerous. Now, back to the original 'Gurt: Yo' definition of the word. Teens will now make videos or memes, where instead of the character 'Gurt' responding 'Yo,' he has other responses, like SYBAU, which stands for 'shut your b—h a—up' or 'What's up twin?' It's all very convoluted and confusing. Educators, like TikTok's Mr. Lindsay, hears his students saying 'gurt' or 'gurting' too, but he also has no idea what it really means. It's so perplexing that even other teens seem confused by this one. As a millennial who used to participate in the 'planking' trend (where you laid flat across various, random surfaces and filmed yourself), I have no room to talk. By the time you wrap your head around gurt, they'll have moved on to something new anyway!Best of SheKnows I'm 29 Weeks Pregnant, & Comfortable Sandals Are a *Must* This Summer—These Are the Best Ones on the Market Recent Baby & Toddler Product Recalls Every Parent and Caregiver Should Know About The Best Bras for Your Teen — & How to Shop Together Without Dying of Embarrassment
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
100 men vs. 1 gorilla: Who would win? A primatology expert addresses the viral debate.
Social media users cannot stop talking about who would win in a hypothetical fight between 100 human men and one gorilla. The viral question has dominated conversations across TikTok, X and Reddit since mid-April, as internet users either try to argue their stance or create memes inspired by the discourse. We tracked down the origins of this debate and asked an expert to weigh in to try to answer the question once and for all. This is not the first time this hypothetical matchup has been debated online. It seems to have originated in 2020 in a question posted in the Who Would Win? subreddit, a section on Reddit dedicated to discussing who would win in various theoretical fights. The question went viral again on TikTok in February 2022 and then resurfaced in early 2025, according to Know Your Meme, a site dedicated to documenting and explaining various internet memes. When they keep sending 100 men to fight a gorilla and the male population decreases — maryama harris (@itsalwaysmaryam) April 27, 2025 The trend has since escalated to the point where people have built virtual simulators of 100 men fighting a single gorilla to see who would come out on top. someone made a simulator of the 1 gorilla vs 100 men 😭 — kira 👾 (@kirawontmiss) April 28, 2025 someone simulated 100 men vs 1 gorilla 😭 — juju 💰 (@ayeejuju) April 28, 2025 Major online personalities such as Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, YouTube's most famous creator, have chimed in, introducing the debate to millions of people. Donaldson jokingly suggested he would make a YouTube video answering the question for his 32 million X followers. In response, X owner Elon Musk, who has over 219 million followers, replied, 'Sure, what's the worst that could happen?' Sure, what's the worst that could happen? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2025 In an effort to put this debate to rest (without orchestrating a fight between a hundred men and a gorilla, of course), Yahoo News turned to Tara Stoinski, the president, CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Stoinski, who has studied gorillas for more than 30 years, said she's received a number of inquiries from friends and other news outlets trying to get an answer to this very question. She told Yahoo News she wasn't necessarily surprised by social media's interest in this particular question because 'a question that gets asked all the time is how much stronger are gorillas than people.' '[Gorillas] are much stronger than us, not only in their physical body strength — they've got all that upper body strength, particularly the males,' Stoinski said. 'They're the largest primate on the planet, but also they've got these massive heads and jaws and jaw muscles, so they're really strong biters — and all of this is in defense.' By 'in defense,' Stoinski explains that gorillas are vegetarians, so their strong muscles and jaws are used for protection rather than hunting. So, what does Stoinski think? Could a single gorilla take on 100 men? According to her, no. The humans would likely win, she said. 'The male gorilla comes in with all of his size and strength, 400 pounds of pure muscle, incredible jaw strength, just a very intimidating demeanor,' she said. 'I think, though, that in this case, it's a numbers game. With 100 men coming after one gorilla, they just have a lot of strategies that they could use to wear the gorilla down, to tire them out. They can coordinate their behavior; they can take turns.' It wouldn't necessarily be a seamless win for the humans, though. 'He'd probably take out a number of humans in the fight; they wouldn't go unscathed,' Stoinski said. 'I think that the numbers just work in the human's favor.' While some may be surprised that humans could defeat a gorilla in a fight, Stoinski is more surprised by the notion that a gorilla would instinctively do anything to harm a group of humans in the first place. 'In this dialogue that's going on around gorillas fighting humans, I think one of the things that's missed is that gorillas are [nicknamed] 'gentle giant,'' Stoinski said. 'More often than not, they're very gentle animals.'
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
100 men vs. 1 gorilla: Who would win? A primatology expert addresses the viral debate.
Social media users cannot stop talking about who would win in a hypothetical fight between 100 human men and one gorilla. The viral question has dominated conversations across TikTok, X and Reddit since mid-April, as internet users either try to argue their stance or create memes inspired by the discourse. We tracked down the origins of this debate and asked an expert to weigh in to try to answer the question once and for all. This is not the first time this hypothetical matchup has been debated online. It seems to have originated in 2020 in a question posted in the Who Would Win? subreddit, a section on Reddit dedicated to discussing who would win in various theoretical fights. The question went viral again on TikTok in February 2022 and then resurfaced in early 2025, according to Know Your Meme, a site dedicated to documenting and explaining various internet memes. The trend has since escalated to the point where people have built virtual simulators of 100 men fighting a single gorilla to see who would come out on top. Major online personalities such as Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, YouTube's most famous creator, have chimed in, introducing the debate to millions of people. Donaldson jokingly suggested he would make a YouTube video answering the question for his 32 million X followers. In response, X owner Elon Musk, who has over 219 million followers, replied, 'Sure, what's the worst that could happen?' In an effort to put this debate to rest (without orchestrating a fight between a hundred men and a gorilla, of course), Yahoo News turned to Tara Stoinski, the president, CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Stoinski, who has studied gorillas for more than 30 years, said she's received a number of inquiries from friends and other news outlets trying to get an answer to this very question. She told Yahoo News she wasn't necessarily surprised by social media's interest in this particular question because 'a question that gets asked all the time is how much stronger are gorillas than people.' '[Gorillas] are much stronger than us, not only in their physical body strength — they've got all that upper body strength, particularly the males,' Stoinski said. 'They're the largest primate on the planet, but also they've got these massive heads and jaws and jaw muscles, so they're really strong biters — and all of this is in defense.' By 'in defense,' Stoinski explains that gorillas are vegetarians, so their strong muscles and jaws are used for protection rather than hunting. So, what does Stoinski think? Could a single gorilla take on 100 men? According to her, no. The humans would likely win, she said. 'The male gorilla comes in with all of his size and strength, 400 pounds of pure muscle, incredible jaw strength, just a very intimidating demeanor,' she said. 'I think, though, that in this case, it's a numbers game. With 100 men coming after one gorilla, they just have a lot of strategies that they could use to wear the gorilla down, to tire them out. They can coordinate their behavior; they can take turns.' It wouldn't necessarily be a seamless win for the humans, though. 'He'd probably take out a number of humans in the fight; they wouldn't go unscathed,' Stoinski said. 'I think that the numbers just work in the human's favor.' While some may be surprised that humans could defeat a gorilla in a fight, Stoinski is more surprised by the notion that a gorilla would instinctively do anything to harm a group of humans in the first place. 'In this dialogue that's going on around gorillas fighting humans, I think one of the things that's missed is that gorillas are [nicknamed] 'gentle giant,'' Stoinski said. 'More often than not, they're very gentle animals.'
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
100 men vs. 1 gorilla: Who would win? A primatology expert addresses the viral debate.
Social media users cannot stop talking about who would win in a hypothetical fight between 100 human men and one gorilla. The viral question has dominated conversations across TikTok, X and Reddit since mid-April, as internet users either try to argue their stance or create memes inspired by the discourse. We tracked down the origins of this debate and asked an expert to weigh in to try to answer the question once and for all. This is not the first time this hypothetical matchup has been debated online. It seems to have originated in 2020 in a question posted in the Who Would Win? subreddit, a section on Reddit dedicated to discussing who would win in various theoretical fights. The question went viral again on TikTok in February 2022 and then resurfaced in early 2025, according to Know Your Meme, a site dedicated to documenting and explaining various internet memes. The trend has since escalated to the point where people have built virtual simulators of 100 men fighting a single gorilla to see who would come out on top. Major online personalities such as Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, YouTube's most famous creator, have chimed in, introducing the debate to millions of people. Donaldson jokingly suggested he would make a YouTube video answering the question for his 32 million X followers. In response, X owner Elon Musk, who has over 219 million followers, replied, 'Sure, what's the worst that could happen?' In an effort to put this debate to rest (without orchestrating a fight between a hundred men and a gorilla, of course), Yahoo News turned to Tara Stoinski, the president, CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Stoinski, who has studied gorillas for more than 30 years, said she's received a number of inquiries from friends and other news outlets trying to get an answer to this very question. She told Yahoo News she wasn't necessarily surprised by social media's interest in this particular question because 'a question that gets asked all the time is how much stronger are gorillas than people.' '[Gorillas] are much stronger than us, not only in their physical body strength — they've got all that upper body strength, particularly the males,' Stoinski said. 'They're the largest primate on the planet, but also they've got these massive heads and jaws and jaw muscles, so they're really strong biters — and all of this is in defense.' By 'in defense,' Stoinski explains that gorillas are vegetarians, so their strong muscles and jaws are used for protection rather than hunting. So, what does Stoinski think? Could a single gorilla take on 100 men? According to her, no. The humans would likely win, she said. 'The male gorilla comes in with all of his size and strength, 400 pounds of pure muscle, incredible jaw strength, just a very intimidating demeanor,' she said. 'I think, though, that in this case, it's a numbers game. With 100 men coming after one gorilla, they just have a lot of strategies that they could use to wear the gorilla down, to tire them out. They can coordinate their behavior; they can take turns.' It wouldn't necessarily be a seamless win for the humans, though. 'He'd probably take out a number of humans in the fight; they wouldn't go unscathed,' Stoinski said. 'I think that the numbers just work in the human's favor.' While some may be surprised that humans could defeat a gorilla in a fight, Stoinski is more surprised by the notion that a gorilla would instinctively do anything to harm a group of humans in the first place. 'In this dialogue that's going on around gorillas fighting humans, I think one of the things that's missed is that gorillas are [nicknamed] 'gentle giant,'' Stoinski said. 'More often than not, they're very gentle animals.'
