The Streamer Awardsan awards ceremony dedicated to livestreaming (and not to be confused with The Streamy Awards), held its first-ever show on March 12. Founded and organized by Cooking Streamer QTCinderella, the celebration attracted 380,000 concurrent viewersas well-known broadcasters like Hasanabi and Pokemon appeared to collect their golden trophies. But, lots were not happy with the event for one reason: the trophy resembles Pepe the frog.
The raised eyebrows shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Pepe has a complicated history that originally began as a non-political character drawn by American cartoonist Matt Furie in 2005 before being appropriated by the alt-right. It has since been used by extremist groups that perpetuate hateful rhetoric. The Anti-Defamation League added Pepe to its database as a hate symbol in 2016, but that hasn’t stopped hate-mongering racists from continuing to use the image across everything online from 4chan to Reddit.
Some have tried to argue that the statue isn’t Pepe, but it seems quite likely that the trophy’s design was intentional and that the Streamer Awards knew what they were doing here. Pepe the Frog appears as an animated GIF at the bottom of the official page.
Amazon’s live streaming platform also has a turbulent history with Pepe. as one of the most popular unofficial emotes from Twitch, the image has often been used to make provocative comments, but is also used more harmlessly when expressing excitement or sadness. But its use as a hate symbol has led to it Streamers are wondering if they will ban Pepe altogether might be a necessary step.
It is this story that has drawn anger on both of them The Streamer Awards and the trophy itself. If QTCinderella the creation tweeted from behind the scenes of the award, several people simply asked, “Why?” when Pepe is a well-known hate symbol. Sure, some claimed that the small trophy — a gold-covered 3D-printed mockup of Pepe in a suit and tie — is cute, and it kind of is. But its dark history mars the cuteness of the trophy. It’s hard to ignore an image that has been used to disparage all manner of marginalized people, including the queer community and the Jewish people.
igamesnews has reached out to the Streamer Awards for comment.
As you can imagine, many People talk about the trophy are puzzled through this design decision. Why The Streamer Awards and QTCinderella would attempt to reclaim such a toxic image is puzzling, to say the least. A streamer named KamiAnja summed up the discourse perfectly a tweet.
“Using Pepe as an award tells a lot of us we’re not welcome there,” they said. “I hope this is unintentional. Please, anyone who doesn’t know, read up on this frog’s story and how he became a dog whistle for white supremacists.”
