Know Your Meme: What Is Kek?

[Initech]

A satirical religion with a frog-headed god has become a favorite new way for white nationalists to troll liberals, while spreading their meme-driven strategy.

Who, or what, is Kek?

You may have seen the name bandied about on social media, especially in political circles where alt-right activists and avid Donald Trump supporters lurk. Usually it is brandished as a kind of epithet, seemingly to ward off the effects of liberal arguments, and it often is conveyed in memes that use the image of the alt-right mascot, Pepe the Frog: “Kek!”

Kek, in the alt-right’s telling, is the “deity” of the semi-ironic “religion” the white nationalist movement has created for itself online – partly for amusement, as a way to troll liberals and self-righteous conservatives both, and to make a kind of political point. He is a god of chaos and darkness, with the head of a frog, the source of their memetic “magic,” to whom the alt-right and Donald Trump owe their success, according to their own explanations.

In many ways, Kek is the apotheosis of the bizarre alternative reality of the alt-right: at once absurdly juvenile, transgressive, and racist, as well as reflecting a deeper, pseudo-intellectual purpose that lends it an appeal to young ideologues who fancy themselves deep thinkers. It dwells in that murky area they often occupy, between satire, irony, mockery, and serious ideology; Kek can be both a big joke to pull on liberals and a reflection of the alt-right’s own self-image as serious agents of chaos in modern society.

Most of all, Kek has become a kind of tribal marker of the alt-right: Its meaning obscure and unavailable to ordinary people – “normies,” in their lingo – referencing Kek is most often just a way of signaling to fellow conversants online that the writer embraces the principles of chaos and destruction that are central to alt-right thinking, as it were.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/05/08/what-kek-explaining-alt-right-deity-behind-their-meme-magic

This is good to know when dealing with alt right types.

[Oneironaut]

1. The alt-right's usage of awful memes makes them that much more annoying.

Memes alone are incredibly annoying. Theirs are a step above in terms of obnoxiousness, spaminess, non -creativeness, and general annoyingness. When I see an alt-right meme used, I can't imagine it's poster being over the age of 16.

[Initech]

3. I'm sure not.

There was a lot of this shit at the March Against Sharia this last week and I wanted to know the origins of what "kek" and "cuck" mean, and yeah the people who buy into this are basically just racist douchebags.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Cuck refers to cuckold.

A reference to a weak man whose wife can sleep with whoever she wants in front of the husband because the husband is such a wuss. So the left with their hugs, compassion, and diplomacy are wusses - cucks. The antithesis of a thuggish bully that swings his elbows around to get what he wants - and he takes what he wants.

[janx]

9. A different form of it is cuckservative--that's how I initially noticed the word.

A sort of cuckolded conservative as opposed to a real, strong one. You can tack cuck onto just about anything for a few juvenile laughs because it resembles other vulgar words.

cunt
fuck
ka-ka

etc.

[Sanity Claws]

2. Someone should put a colander on Kek's head

For all we know, Kek could be the REAL Flying Spaghetti monster.

[Shell_Seas]

4. Haha, OMG.

“Kek” is a translation of the acronym “LOL” (laugh out loud) when reading text written by members of the Horde faction as an Alliance player in the online multiplayer game World of Warcraft...

Started around 2004/2005.

[sweetloukillbot]

5. kek was an insult in PVP in World of Warcraft

It read as LOL by the other player (laughing out loud). I'd suspect that is the origin - laughing at those on the other side.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. Their memes are so bad tho.

[janx]

10. Yes.

They are.

[HughBeaumont]

8. Some young libertarian once said "All my keks" to me.

I told him I don't speak 20 year old.

[Wednesdays]

11. I do a lot of stuff that requires me to go to various places

on social media, and I've come across a fair number of these types. I am not intimately knowledgeable about them, but I've seen enough to get an idea of what they're like and what they believe is their purpose.

They aren't the only ones who use the terms, but a striking characteristic of their rhetoric is to attach the words "cancer" and "autism" to things they do not like, and "autistic" to people who favor such things. They engage in cyber-bullying, forming large online groups where they call for cohorts to "raid" unsuspecting targets, which usually are peaceful discussion groups. The victim groups are choked by spam and insult messages, and in some cases are hacked and stolen, shutting down the message board permanently.

As mentioned above, they bash things or people they see as "weak" or "effeminate," and unabashed racist comments are routine. Pepe is naturally a frequent mascot, but their pages are also adorned with images of dictators such as Hitler or Stalin, and there seems a strange obsession with 9-11 as well.

[Initech]

12. I've quit several forums because of that kind of behavior.

Cyber bullying is not my thing. And now we have a president who is the biggest cyber bully of them all, it's enabled people who seem to think that this sort of behavior is OK. One of the worst forums I was on that engaged in the practice of raiding other forums was Cracked. And one of the site administrators told me to go fuck myself because I posted something they didn't like. I told them the same and I haven't been back since. So yeah it does have consequences.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Well, that's cleared up a usage of "normie" for me

I've seen a weird member on another forum talking about 'normies' of more than one nationality. I couldn't work out what they meant, or the position of this person - I'd seen that used by autistic people about the non-autistic, but that didn't make sense in the context. If it means "non-racist", things look a little clearer.