Yeah, if you don't know what Pepe stands for now, you're not in touch with reality. Anyone on social media has seen Pepe. He's all over Twitter and he's become the symbol of the AltRight. Claiming he's not just makes you look ignorant. This would be like running for Parliment in a European country in the late 30's and claiming to be ignorant of what the Swastika symbolizes. You'd be rightly called out as incompetent and out of touch.
Not everyone lives in your hate bubble. I've never heard of it and many would consider this social media. Pepe is as well known as a swastika? WTF?
Yeah, you're out of touch. Go to Twitter and hit up the search button. You'll see a list of trending topics. Pick one, any one, that is political about Hillary or Trump. Pepe is going to show up pretty quickly and he is going to be part of a racist or misogynist diatribe. Or he's going to be part of a post advocating violence. It won't take long at all to find him pop up in any trending topic related to politics and when you do he'll be linked to outright racism.
And yeah, Pepe is certainly as big a deal now as the Swastika was in the 1930's. The world wasn't at war yet but folks paying attention knew the Nazis were bad news. They knew their symbol. The #AltRight is bad news and they are growing bad news. They're a literal cancer growing at the heart of American Democracy and Pepe is their symbol.
I'll add there's another symbol I'm starting to see pop up but it is less common and I don't expect a lot of folks recognize it right now. The Trump Lion. Trump supporters are using it instead of traditional GOP symbol as a signal that Trump is an outsider. Thing is though, it's not a symbol I see used much outside the #AltRight where it is definitely popular. It's not as toxic as Pepe has become so maybe its not as indelibly linked with #AltRight as Pepe is.