Update (7/14/21): Following the publication of this article, three products mentioned here -- two T-shirts with the text “Groyper” and “Groyper Army” and one with Groyper’s face -- were removed from Amazon. The platform did not respond to Insider’s request for comment regarding the products.
Update (7/26/21): One of the books that was being marketed to children — Who’s that_groyper? — was removed from Amazon. The author of the books wrote on Gab that “Amazon terminated my account” but claimed that by that point he had made “about 70 dollars profit” from the platform.
Amazon is selling multiple products associated with a far-right meme that is now synonymous with a known white nationalist group. Some of the products are being marketed for children, and Amazon has directly bought some of them to sell from its warehouses.
The meme, known as “Groyper,” is a spinoff version of Pepe the Frog, also a symbol in far-right circles, and has became popular among those who think Pepe is too “mainstream.” In fall 2019, Nick Fuentes -- a Holocaust-denying white nationalist who attended the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and encouraged the January 6 insurrection -- led a campaign to have followers for his group, America First, harass those who they perceived as more mainstream conservatives. Fuentes called this the “Groyper War,” with his followers calling themselves “Groypers” and claiming membership in a “Groyper Army.” (One of the Groypers, “Baked Alaska,” was arrested for participating in the insurrection.)
A Media Matters review of Amazon found multiple products associated with Groyper, most of which appear to have become available on the platform either around the time of or since Fuentes and his followers embraced the meme.
Two of the products being offered on Amazon are books called Who’s that_groyper? and The Groyper And Frens Coloring Book (“fren” is an acronym used in far-right circles for “far-right ethno-nationalist”). The books -- which are authored by the same person -- are both listed as children’s books. Additionally, they are sold and shipped by Amazon directly, meaning that “these items have been purchased as inventory by Amazon” and are “sold and shipped to you from an Amazon warehouse.”
