Feels Good Man

What does Pepe the Frog say about peeing with his pants pulled down to his ankles? “Feels good man.” Artist Matt Furie posted this deadpan cartoon to MySpace and unintentionally set in motion an unpredictable sequence of events. Naive as he was at the time, Furie didn’t immediately realize that Pepe the Frog would soon become a hugely popular meme.

Furie’s green brainchild and his slogan “Feels good man” started popping up in countless forms. This success, aided in large part by the anonymous Internet forum 4chan, peaked in 2015, when Donald Trump retweeted a meme about himself and Pepe the Frog. Furie was none too happy about that, but when Pepe was embraced by white supremacists he knew he’d really lost control over his own creation.

Arthur Jones’s debut documentary, featuring brilliant animations, won a Special Jury Award at Sundance. The director follows the amiable comic strip artist as he attempts to wrest back control. Jones gives Furie and his friends plenty of opportunity to have their say, and joins a handful of top experts as they dive into the fascinating and terrifying virtual world where alternative facts reign supreme.