Submitted by the Antigroyper

The history of online subculture has been an exhaustive story. The internet and “meme economy” allows people to exploit asymmetries in entertainment, culture and information sharing by bypassing traditional market models. Everyone that has researched online subculture knows the saga that is “Pepe the frog” the frog comic character created by Matt Furie. An aesthetic derivative of Pepe, the rotund “Groyper” that sits with his fingers interlocked supporting his chin has seen the spotlight in the past few years.

I was involved with the meme’s original rise to fame and have exclusive sources and screencaps from the original community. So to the on the clock journalists and federal employess that are interested in how cool of a meme this is, or pedestrian reader alike, here’s the story. The meme has been around since in 2016 originating on the /V/ board of 4chan The first known Twitter instantiation was “@groyper”.

Followed later by @emperor_groyper , @its_groyper, Professor Groyper and the most popular poster currently around @that_groyper At the end of September 2017, the meme really took off. People made personal versions and plays on the original Groyper along with shticks to boot. I came up with “Boomer Groyper” a caricature of the milquetoast conservative positions of baby boomers and my avi was made personally by Professor Groyper as a play on Bill Mitchell’s show.

The meme’s character and story was then back filled with varying degrees of success the one that stuck was “Cozy”. Groypers began posting all things Cozy autumn, recipes, leaves falling from trees, and do to this day. Cozy posting is mainly promoted by @that_groyper who changes account themes from time to time. I joined the “Groyper High Council” a group dm on Twitter where all the biggest Groyper accounts would discuss the meme. Common during Groyper discussions in public and private was meteoric rise of Bitcoin that occurred in the fall of 2017.

At the same time the humorous epithet “nocoiner” was adopted to refer to people with no cryptocurrency or who were against it. The meme also capitalized on the overuse of the “Kekistan” meme, the right leaning fanfiction created around Pepe the frog. YouTuber Sargon of Akkad embraced the meme which disillusioned a portion of farther right Pepe fans, which added to the popularity of Groyper. People could impose almost anything on the meme although the majority of posters were right wing or nationalist. A purely tweet form of the meme posters will also use is an outlandish character and put a “Groyper” at the end to ironicize their character a la “28 yo grad student from Vermont with a Kolonopin addiction Groyper” or something equally outrageous. Unfortunately, most of the original Groyper accounts have long been suspended, which makes it nearly impossible to research it’s origins.

After the original mania, the meme consolidated throughout 2018 primarily on Twitter. In this time, notable aberrations were outlandish versions like “Partial birth abortion Groyper”, “FGM Groyper” (female genital mutilation), and the infamous “cum Groyper” who created the association between Groyper and “rape” which plays a big part in the meme’s current connotation. Iterations “Longboi” and “Big Boy” also made the rounds. By now, there are literally thousand of Groypers out there and more are made everyday.

The meme’s popularity in recent weeks has taken off once again thanks to Nicholas J. Fuentes. Nicholas, (who I’ve been fan of from some time) has been engaged in a political and rhetorical battle against mainstream conservative organizations and pundits. His most notable advancement has been encouraging his supporters to ask pointed thoughtful questions to Charlie Kirk at his “Culture War” tour at Universities across the US. At some point, he used the hyperbole “Groypers” to describe his fan’s gathering in groups, it stuck and Nick’s large Twitter engagement helped solidify it. Nick has clarified he mainly was referring the “rape Groyper” version is his coinage”.

This derivative was created by “Yankee” @nervousamerican as a play on an older Alex Jones meme. The recent rise has led to the Dailygroyper.com and even a Groyper podcast called the “Groypcast”. Some of the long time posters have expressed disapproval at the recent mania, but I believe memes really go with the flow. All this shitposting has left offline types stumped and confused. No one in offline Politics or the media knows what the hell “Groyper” is. As @EvanPlatinum said “If you see a Groyper you have already lost” The Groyper meme in any iteration is perfect in what it is, a meme for spreading of ideas or getting a point across. Whether it will become overused and discarded for another obscure internet art form or emulsified with various internet communities is yet to be seen. But this my side of the story as I’ve seen it unfold.