Culture Man fired from job for writing Pepe The Frog Fanfiction - REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"An assistant principal was removed from his position at the Rodriguez Middle School in Denton, Texas after it was discovered he wrote a children’s book starring the controversial internet meme character Pepe the Frog.

In Eric Hauser’s 54-page illustrated story, titled The Adventures of Pepe and Pede, the anthropomorphic frog protagonist Pepe and his centipede friend Pede work together to rid their local swamp of the antagonist Alkah, a bearded alligator who has brought chaos to the entire Wishington Farm. To vanquish their deceitful foe, Pepe and Pede throw magical buds from their farm’s Honesty Tree, apparently red-pilling the alligator to death.

Various internet memes associated with Trump supporters are also referenced in the book, including a cliff named “Kek” and a dedication to Hauser’s “fellow centipedes,” a nickname for users on the /r/The_Donald subreddit.

Following a backlash on social media from those who called his book’s protagonist a symbol of white supremacy, the Denton school district issued a statement announcing that Hauser would be reassigned due to his work becoming a “distraction.”

In an interview with Dallas Observer, Hauser denied having racist or white supremacist views, claiming he found Pepe to simply be a “lovable character” and that he had been labeled racist “in an attempt to silence conservatives.”

While initially self-published, the book was purchased by Post Hill Press after it began trending online. In an interview with the Associated Press, Post Hill Press publisher Anthony Ziccardi expressed surprise about the backlash to the book, blaming online efforts to “turn these characters into something they’re not.”

In the fallout of this bizarre controversy, one question remains unanswered: What effect will this have on the Rare Pepe market?"

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http://knowyourmeme.com/news/texas-...ng-controversial-pepe-the-frog-childrens-book
 
The issue I see here isn't a sperg getting fired because his weird fanfiction is discovered. That's just the natural order of things.

It's when he only got fired because his work offended particularly loudly-whining snowflakes.

If this was a leftist book, it could've been outright offensive to Trump and the right and no one would've complained. I don't like the double standards that keep getting set.
 
What interests me is how the publisher thinks that this guy has the rights to use a character that he doesn't own and hasn't been given permission to use.

Pepe belongs to the South American comic book artist that made him (and he's been open in saying that he's disgusted by Pepe being associated with right-wing ideals, he killed Pepe off in the comic because of said association).
 
What interests me is how the publisher thinks that this guy has the rights to use a character that he doesn't own and hasn't been given permission to use.

Pepe belongs to the South American comic book artist that made him (and he's been open in saying that he's disgusted by Pepe being associated with right-wing ideals, he killed Pepe off in the comic because of said association).

Sure he did.

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This is easily Ben "The Spook Nuke" Garrison's best cartoon ever. Not only is it unironically funny on the most basic level, it's so fucking rich to see Zyklon Ben, who finally came to terms with /pol/acks editing his shit, calling Furie out without looking like a hypocrite.
 
Lol, cartoons make lawyers so upset that famous copyright lawyer Mr. Don Steinberg will work for free if it means racist books are taken off the shelves and not allowed to be sold anymore.

I doubt the author cares that much. He only made $1500 from the book sales and likely only wrote it to troll Islamophiles like the Jews who worked pro-bono for this case to get rid of evil written hatred in children's books (and let's be honest, what child would even get their hands on this book? The only one buying it are people who buy Milo's books, as seen by Amazon recommendations.)

Now that it's in the news that the book is now banned from Amazon, multiple websites writing about this copyright case, the book and its contents will have even more reach than a few dozens of people from Stormfront ordering it. I've never even heard about this book before now, has anyone else in this thread? It couldn't have sold more than 400 copies at $13. A $1500 profit from a $13 book isn't a lot of books.
 
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Lol, cartoons make lawyers so upset that famous copyright lawyer Mr. Don Steinberg will work for free if it means racist books are taken off the shelves and not allowed to be sold anymore.

I think it's pretty douchey to curbstomp the guy after he already got fired from his job.

I hope this asshole gets the full Ben Garrison treatment.
 
I think it's pretty douchey to curbstomp the guy after he already got fired from his job.

I hope this asshole gets the full Ben Garrison treatment.

He wasn't even fired, just "reassigned." I don't think being an assistant principal at "Rodriguez Middle School" is that glamorous of a position that he worked his whole life for anyway.

By the way, doesn't this infringe on his right to free speech? Are school workers not allowed to publish 'controversial' books while working for the government? Is there some law or employment contract he signed that forbids him from expressing controversial opinions outside of his work activities?

Do you think any of you could find a case of some insane public school teacher publishing even more radical books, with zero consequences? If so, isn't that a case of viewpoint discrimination, where only certain viewpoints are allowed to be expressed while working as a school assistant principal?

I'm willing to bet the only reason he wasn't fired is that he might have a case that his first amendment right is infringed upon if he was fired. And he probably has tenure.
 
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He wasn't even fired, just "reassigned." I don't think being an assistant principal at "Rodriguez Middle School" is that glamorous of a position that he worked his whole life for anyway.

By the way, doesn't this infringe on his right to free speech? Are school workers not allowed to publish 'controversial' books while working for the government? Is there some law or employment contract he signed that forbids him from expressing controversial opinions outside of his work activities?

You're not entitled to make money by outright stealing someone else's character and making a book out of it, then selling that.

At the very least, the person whose copyright you're infringing is entitled to the profits you made from that.

Legally, Furie was entitled to do that.

I just think he was kind of a douche to insist on it.

At the same time, making an alt-right guy who is using his character in a way he hates cough up his profits to fund a mosque has a certain poetic justice.
 
You're not entitled to make money by outright stealing someone else's character and making a book out of it, then selling that.

The copyright case is open and shut.

What I'm curious about is the legality of 'firing' an assistant principal for publishing a children's book with frogs and alligators. Do you think he might have a case that his 1st amendment rights were infringed, if he lost his job over writing and publishing this book? The school district made it clear, too, that his reassignment was due to the controversy around the contents of the book, not the copyright infringement.
 
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There's a very brief window where people don't have to worry about all the polarizing bullshit in the world, and should be shielded from most of it in fact, so that they can focus on learning to become healthy, happy, well adjusted, productive members of society while also being equipped with the necessary tools to eventually make their own rational, independent decisions; that window is called childhood.

Forcing politics on kids is retarded no matter which side is doing it - and yeah, I realize :left: one side does it wayyyy more :left:. The focus should be pressuring the left fuck off with it, not allowing the right to also act like idiots too because fairness; forcing idpol genderspecial sex positivity on literal children is gross and dumb and the answer isn't to use them in a proxy war to ~trigger the libs~ by sneaking 'red-pilled (((Happy Alligator))) maymays' or whatever into their books.

On a related note, the dude who created Pepe is a humorless faggot.

TIA for reading all these words about a cartoon frog.
 
I hope this asshole gets the full Ben Garrison treatment
What more can anyone do? The "Pepe as a hate symbol" narrative is far, far more widely spread than Furie's original work will ever be, regardless of how successful his most recent kickstarter campaign turns out to be. I mean, who the fuck has actually read Boy's Club? Does Furie even publish that shit regularly?
 
Culling people from their job for wrong think reminds me of something actual Nazis would do....

tbh if I found out I had an employee this retarded I'd fire him regardless of his political beliefs
 
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