A Local Realtor Is Using Pepe and the “Plandemic” to Advertise

How do we create communities where this can’t happen?

This billboard is currently off the state highway in my town, put up by a local realtor working at a mainstream realty company. The billboard reads “Tired of the Plandemic? Move to the country!” and has an image of Pepe the Frog holding a phone.

The other day, a friend sent me a photo of the billboard from the side of the road in my hometown. It was put up by a local realtor and read: “Tired of the Plandemic? Move to the country!” and implored viewers to contact him. Next to the text was an image of Pepe the Frog. “Isn’t this ridiculous?” my friend said, as if it were just distasteful.

But it’s so much more than that. It’s dangerous.

The pandemic (referred to in the billboard as the “Plandemic” in a nod to the conspiracy video that circulated the internet in the early days of COVID) is no joke. Nearly 700k people have died in a pandemic that has not yet reached its end. Misinformation and purposeful, planned disinformation (like the movie Plandemic) are directly responsible for many, many of these deaths.

But it’s the damn frog that caught my eye. Pepe the Frog, a harmless cartoon turned internet meme turned alt-right icon, is heavily used by white supremacists and is recognized by the American Defamation League as a hate symbol. When someone I know called the realtor to ask him why he put a white supremacist symbol on his sign, he claimed he did not know what it was.