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Film: Feels Good Man

Tuesday 1 June, 20:00 – 22:00

Directed by Arthur Jones

Q&A with: Daniël de Zeeuw

Artist Matt Furie, creator of the comic character Pepe the Frog, begins an uphill battle to take back his iconic cartoon image from those who used it for their own purposes.

Why did Italy win (oh, I can understand) Hard to draw people pulling their pants down: oh so true
Why did Italy win (oh, I can understand) Are 4Chan users just not Incels? White-not-havings-sex-guys-and-not-that dumb-who-wanna-vommit-online on other people because in fact they are kinda sad....?
Rob amazing story...
Why did Italy win (oh, I can understand) Why did he call him Pepe (or did I missed that?): it's a Latino-name?
Why did Italy win (oh, I can understand) Why is it that in Japan for example not fitting in or not being able to have a sexual relationship or being able to meet up to career-expectations leads to depression and accepting to not have sex and in the US it leads in my opinion to internet-rage and even mass shootings on schools?
João Melo because one has guns
Vincent What’s the best way to handle unwanted attention or things taken out of context (oneself or one’s art)? Denying, fighting and suing or ‘embracing the meme’?
João Melo not anymore...
Thanks in advance and enjoy!
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Why did Italy win (oh, I can understand) So what's the real message of the omen Pepe that we need to understand?
Vincent This was amazing
Zaki Agreed
Joni Only America would take a meme and turn into a hate symbol somehow.
Joni It striked to me as a funny occurence because all the white nationalists have the idea that they are being opressed by the "other races" when the reality is that they are contributing nothing to the society and hecne their status quo in the society. And then you have the same people who start making money by selling a bunch of virtual cards with the meme with no effort at all.
Lucas Is the Pepe phenomenon completely new and part of internet or are there non-internet examples of similar kind of memes or 'memes avant le lettre'
Lucas Will Matt ever be released from this burden, do you think?
Joep I think things like "the rules of the internet" were also made up by to indeed separate the internet from reality
Yavor Razboinikov Do you think that many 4chan users fail to distinguish identity play with genuine opinions?
Niek Rutten In the documentary they describe this kind of battle of the public understanding of what Pepe is about and these 4chan users who feel powerful through controlling the public discourse about this character. Keeping this in mind do you think it was a good move of the Anti Defamation League to define it as a hate symbol or are they just playing into what 4chan wants?
Ari Just dropping in to say I loved this documentary as well as the discussion afterwards, didn't expect such an in-depth analysis of the whole 4chan "ironically neonazi" environment:)
Ebru I've recently heard the distinction of "gamergate refugees" of 4chan trollers who aren't committed to blood and soil nationalism but are still engaging in gamergate-type techniques
Ebru In regards to harassing prominent women and queer figures in specific internet communities, I mean
Senthil That was a very insightful QnA, thank you!
Hi everyone and welcome to: Feels Good Man. If you have any questions for media scientist Daniël de Zeeuw, you can ask them via this chat. We’ll do our best to address a few questions after the documentary.  
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Stay tuned for the interview with media scientist Daniël de Zeeuw :)
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Feels Good Man is the story of how artist Matt Furie, creator of a trippy, once-benign comic character named Pepe the Frog, fights an uphill battle to reclaim his iconic creation from those who turned it into a symbol of hate. An exploration of the power of online imagery and the fascinating spin cycle of memes in a culture where ownership and meaning can be wrested away from creators,  is a thought-provoking, wild ride through an Internet that transformed an unlucky cartoon frog, and then the rest of the world.

Created by Furie as a character in his comic , Pepe was originally an embodiment of the laid-back lifestyles of young male college graduates finding their footing in the real world. After popping up in meme form on various fitness blogs, Pepe eventually started appearing on the anonymous online message board 4chan, where his image was quickly replicated and adopted as a symbol of misfits everywhere.

Feels Good Man follows Pepe’s surreal journey of being co-opted and twisted into an image of hate by extreme online communities through the eyes of his horrified creator, who finds himself increasingly powerless to stop this co-optation as it spirals out of his control. The film asks the questions: Does anyone truly own anything on the internet? Can an image that has been transformed into one of hate be transformed once again into one of hope?

Arthur Jones’s debut documentary, featuring brilliant animations, won a Special Jury Award at Sundance.

After the online screening: live interview with media scientist Daniël de Zeeuw

After the screening, we will be joined online via livestream by media scientist Daniël de Zeeuw. You will be able to ask him questions through the chat. Daniël de Zeeuw currently works as a Senior Lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. His current research focuses on fringe online subcultures as post-truth media environments comprised of conspiracy theories, junk news, political extremism and memes that have become increasingly influential in recent years, and that cast a critical light on the vicissitudes of our hyper-mediatized condition.

SG & USE registration

You can only register for SG&USE if you watch the entire program live and if you complete an online SG&USE registration form within five minutes after the end of the program. Before the program starts we will explain where and when you can find the link to the registration form. Keep your student ID number at hand, because you'll need to fill it out in the form.

Please make sure your registration is done properly, otherwise we cannot verify that you were present.

More information about SG & USE can be found here.

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