Apple removes Pepe The Frog game from its App Store
“Alt-right” hate mascot Pepe The Frog may be dead, but as everyone surely predicted, that hasn’t stopped the more despicable corners of the internet from continuing to worship the cartoon at their craven altars. Case in point: New York Magazine is reporting that some people recently tried to release a Pepe-themed game on the App Store, but they were summarily rejected due to the fact that Apple now recognizes Pepe as an offensive symbol. Being primarily associated with hate groups and internet creeps tends to do that.
This story doesn’t stop there, though, because the developers at Spirit Realm Games tried to play it off like they had no idea that Pepe was anything more than a funny internet meme—a point of view that would require someone to have stayed off the internet for over a year. Spirit Realm Games gave a statement to Vice, saying that they saw some Pepe memes and something “clicked,” inspiring them to make an innocent game about a “silly and funny idea” that they could show off to their friends.