Pepe the Frog will be missed, as Steam, the most popular PC gaming market platform has now taken down emoticons featuring the meme with no chances of bringing it back.
Matt Furie, the intellectual property (IP) owner of Pepe, has requested the takedown of the meme icon from Steam and perhaps other platforms. Furie has also invoked the capacity of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to permanently ban the use of Pepe until further notice, meaning the frog may as well be gone for good on the internet eventually.
Furie deemed it well to deny Steam his said intellectual property after numerous troll groups have used the frog as part of their protest paraphernalia. Apart from Steam, Furie has also sent DMCA notices to numerous companies such as Reddit and Amazon.
Apparently, Pepe has become an icon for alt-right extremist groups whose beliefs include racist perceptions and outward exclamations, and they also happen to be avid Trump supporters. Louis Tompros, a well-established IP lawyer who represented Furie, has stated, "A Steam user let us know that there were Pepe images being sold on the site and that they were being used on that site by people in connection with hateful speech. We asked Steam to take those down, and it appears that it has done that."
The said people who support hate speeches were also linked to the extremist alt-right groups mentioned. Meanwhile, it seems game streaming website Twitch was not yet purged of its Pepe the Frog emoticons according to Comic Book, though this might become short-lived since Furie has become vigilant towards the use of his IP for the wrong reasons.
As for the said alt-right groups, a lot of them were disgruntled at the denial of Pepe the Frog for their visual propaganda and have lambasted Furie. Some even demanded financial compensation since they seem to have purchased the said meme icon with real-world money.
Pepe the Frog picked up in popularity back in 2005 when Furie made a comic about the weird looking amphibian. The frog has seen varying uses and messages since its inception as a meme, with the most notable ones being Sad Frog, Smug Frog, Feels Frog, and "You will never..." Frog memes.
