Feels Good Man

This is a really good documentary, only let down slightly by a part near the end regarding the 'rare Pepe's'- they didn't explain it very well and I was super confused. It also wasn't very relevant to everything else, which makes me wonder whether it was added to get the overall film over 90 minutes.

That being said, everything else was really strong. The presentation is unique, I liked the use of animation, and the music was surprisingly good too. It tells a fascinating story about a meme that got out of the control of its creator, and while I was familiar with Pepe to some extent, I definitely didn't know the whole story, which made this really engaging.

For me, it started to get really interesting when they began to cover the meme's relation to the 2016 US Election- that was genuinely fascinating.

If you're interested in meme culture, politics, or just want a good documentary, I can highly recommend this one.

I went into this film hoping for the vibe of the title, but it just felt really uncomfortable and honestly cringey, like the filmmakers and possibly Matt Furie himself felt they had to try to appease the Anti-Defamation League, who are a bunch of genuinely evil kunts, as the one scene with the ADL guy further shows.

There was a line by one of Matt's friends in the film that he suggested they sue the ADL for putting Pepe on the hate list, which is exactly what they should have done. Pepe is an awesome character and internet icon that has entered the public domain, and any attempt to wrangle control back of how the meme is used is an exercise in hubris and futility. Matt and his friends should have just legally destroyed the ADL for even daring to label Pepe a hate symbol.

It's sad how the ADL has zero sense of humour, even self-appointing themselves to go after cartoon characters and their creators for simply having fun. What right do they have to hold someone's creation hostage like that? They are a private organisation with no legal authority whatsoever. If I were Matt Furie, I would go ahead and sue the ADL right now. You can still do it!

It's a well made documentary with nicely animated segments. Largely following the perspective of the creator and what happened to pepe. All through an extremely narrow and biased view.

Around the 45min mark, it becomes just crystal clear how he doesn't understand his creation. How he, together with ADL, Hillary Clinton, Maddow and rest of left wing media helped enable this to become a "far right hate speech symbol". It never was that, until these people decided to make pepe into that. It seems completely out of touch with trolling and getting a rise out of people, and going against the mainstream and political correctness. The more these people wish to silence and censor people, the more crazy pepe memes they would get in response. They themselves are the enablers.

The 4chan guy they mainly choose to focus on was such a stereotype fitting 100% the narrative they attempted to persuade. While they did talk to a girl who also roamed 4chan, she was left too much out of the documentary so they could push their view on the audience.

As they show Hong Kong demonstrators towards the end who embrace Pepe, the creator and movie makers seems to not understand that them embracing pepe comes from similar reasons as why it was embraced in the US by Trump supporters. In both cases it's used as anti-leftists, anti-censorship, anti-establishment memes. If they happen to side with the Chinese government, I'm sure they would have labeled their use of it as "hate speech" also.

But all of this being said, it's not a bad documentary, as long as the biased view doesn't annoy you too much. Still a nice capsule of most of the pepe events and how the character grew beyond the grasp of it's creator.

This documentary has two focuses; the story of Pepe being adopted and appropriated by the internet, and the story of a cartoonist losing his creation. It is in the telling of the former story where the film excels. It follows Pepe from when it first becomes popular on bodybuilding forums to becoming the most popular meme on 4chan to eventually becoming a symbol of the alt-right in the 2016 U.S. election. The movie frames this entire story in the emotions of the people posting the meme. It is not so much about the meme itself as it is about what it means to them, and Pepe meant a lot.

The presentation of the documentary is creative and well paced, mixing animation, interviews, television footage, and screen grabs to keep from ever becoming monotonous. The result is an exiting presentation that emphasizes the empathy for the people being talked about. When the movie gets to the point where Pepe is becoming the symbol of a political movement and Trump is posting himself as Pepe, it is exhilarating. I remember this happening in real life and despising these people, yet despite myself I was getting caught up in the excitement of it all.

There is a sobering transition of tone when, after this section, the camera is back on Matt Furie, his life made so difficult by what was done with his creation. He was naive and maybe wilfully ignorant of what was happening, but he did what we wish more artists would do today, letting people be creative with their characters rather than sending cease and desists. By the time he tries to recover Pepe it is too late and he finally kills the character as 4chan rejoices that Pepe is officially theirs. It is terribly sad.

I thought about downgrading my rating to a 9 because the ending is optimistic in a way that i didn't quite buy, but I've decided to forgive it. The story of this movie is an unprecedented catastrophe that no one could have predicted. Maybe its foolish to assume I can predict where the story is going.

Feels Good Man is not just a Documentary of the Internet character and meme Pepe (the Frog). It's also about Internet culture, expressionism, and the power of symbols. It depicts the attachment people can have to certain images, seeing them as ways of expressing themselves and their feelings. These can be both showcases of good and hope, as well as rage and sadness. This diversity is explained very well in the movie with a mix of real-time and animation, that shows the facades of the character being used for many means.

The documentary also shows the struggle to understand and come to terms with your creation slipping through your fingers into an infinite sea of people. Then diluting so much that you cannot get it back. The popularization of your character but not of your art, the uses and depictions that were never intended, many the Creator doesn't want to be attached to it, and by way of creation, all dragging him into the spotlight.

The cinematography is spot on, with a really good dose of animation, as well as popular images. The arc is well accomplished and there are a good amount of perspectives thrown into the mix. Ultimately, it seems like a fair and knowledgeable depiction of the meme's progress through time and of meme culture in general.