Groyper
This is free issue of the monthly “Words in the News” feature.
Groypers are a loose association of white-nationalist, antisemitic homophobes who follow neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. They are known for targeting conservatives whom they deem aren’t fascist and antisemitic enough. One of their primary targets was right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk and his group Turning Point USA. Speculation on social media has associated the man suspected of assassinating Kirk with the Groyper movement, but as of this writing we don't know the assassin’s motives.
The followers of Fuentes began to be known as Groypers in 2019, although the name dates to several years earlier. The original Groyper was a cartoon variation of the Pepe the Frog meme used as an alt-right meme and icon. The Groyper cartoon started to appear in 2015 and depicts a corpulent version of Pepe the Frog, usually depicted as sitting with his chin resting on his interlocked fingers.
The etymology of Groyper is unknown. It may simply be a nonsense name. It is sometimes claimed to by a blend of goy (gentile) + groper (sexual assaulter), but this seems to be an etymythology arising from the term’s later association with Fuentes and his followers. (Fuentes has been accused of supporting and covering for men accused of soliciting sex from underage boys.)
In November 2016, a person joined Twitter with the handle @groyper. There are a few earlier tweets that use groyper starting in 2013, but it’s unclear what the word refers to in these tweets. Some sources claim uses of the word started to appear in 2015, but none provide actual citations of the term prior to the 2016 Twitter handle. The 2015 date may be a conflation of the cartoon with the word.
Groyper, referring to the cartoon, starts to make its way into print media by 11 December 2017, when it appears in the Colorado Springs Gazette in an article about then-Republican Congressman Mike Coffman tweeting in Spanish in favor legislation to legalize the status of immigrants brought to the United States as minor, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA:
"Do you speak English?" roars a dapper blonde youngster into a bullhorn in front of a chalkboard, in one.
It was among several replies to Coffman's tweet posted by a prolific Twitter user going by the name Dangerous Groyper, who uses an avatar depicting a grotesque smiling toad dubbed a Groyper—what's been described as an even more racist counterpart of Pepe the Frog, the cartoon character adopted as a mascot in recent years by white supremacists and members of the alt-right.
Coffman has been tweeting for some time—in both English and Spanish—about a DACA fix and his support for pending legislation, including the DREAM Act of 2017, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for some immigrants brought to the country illegally as minors. But none of those tweets attracted the kind of vituperative scolding Friday's tweet drew.
In 2018, conspiracy-theorist Shiva Ayyadurai unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for US senator from Massachusetts. During the campaign, he distributed campaign pins featuring a brown-skinned version of the Groyper cartoon. This was picked up by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz when Ayyadurai was included in a list of neo-Nazi politicians running for office in the United States:
Ayyadurai issued campaign pins featuring the white nationalist symbol Groyper, a cartoon toad. He’s also friends with Matt Colligan, who marched in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and once said “Hitler did nothing wrong.” Ayyadurai appeared in a live video broadcast with Colligan and called him “one of our greatest supporters.”
Several definitions of Groyper appear in Urbandictionary on 30 October 2019. Two of these are as follows. The first:
A groyper is a smug toad used as an avatar by trolls online. His often refashioned face seems to entice a penchant for chaos and perhaps even a little comfiness.
Why do these groypers in my mentions keep telling me to Google the U.S.S. Liberty and Dancing Israelis?
The USS Liberty was a US Navy surveillance ship that was attacked in international waters by the Israeli forces during the 1967 Six-Day War. 34 crew members were killed and 171 wounded in the attack.
The second definition in Urbandictionary on that date refers to Kirk as a target for Groypers:
A friendly individual who prefers to relax, read and drink tea. Groypers can be characterized by loving their frens, their country, animals and God. Groypers are very well versed in history and have no trouble questioning established historical or political sentiments when the logic/facts behind them are proven to be false. They are easily identified by their obese frame and green skin. Groypers are closely related to Pepe.
“Congratulations to the Groypers for crushing Charlie Kirk.”
“Hey groypers, what's the deal with the USS Liberty and the Dancing Israelis anyway?”
And a 11 November 2019 article in London’s Independent associates the Groyper meme with Fuentes and his followers:
Charlie Kirk, TPUSA’s leader and a pro-Trump activist, was denounced as a “political liability” running a group that “SMEARS socially conservative Christians and supporters of President Trump’s agenda” by far-right figures on Twitter. “Our problem is not with @DonaldJTrumpJr who is a patriot—We are supporters of his father!” tweeted one, Nicholas Fuentes.
Another said: “THIS IS A REVOLUTION among the conservative youth in this country . . . WE WILL NOT STOP until the sanctioned invasion of our country through mass legal immigration comes to an end.”
“Congrats, Charlie Kirk. You just made the Groyper Army more powerful than before. All you had to do was just take a few questions . . .” tweeted a third.
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Sources:
Luning, Ernest. “Mike Coffman’s DACA Tweet in Spanish Draws Heated Response.” Gazette (Colorado Springs), 11 December 2017. ProQuest Newspapers.
“A MAGA Groyper? Charlie Kirk Shooter Tyler Robinson’s Political Leaning Unclear; Nick Fuentes Reacts to ‘Pure Evil.’” Times of India, 13 September 2025.
Miller-Idriss, Cynthia. “Grooming and Recruiting: Cultivating Intellectual Leadership. In Hate in the Homeland. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2020, 116. JSTOR.
“Record Breaking Number of Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists Running for Office in the U.S.” Haaretz (Tel Aviv), 15 July 2018. ProQuest Newspapers.
Rivera, Joshua. “Groypers, Helldivers 2, Furries: What Do the Messages Left by Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Killer Actually Mean?” Vanity Fair (online), 12 September 2025.
Sherman, Jon. “Trump Jr Abandons ‘Triggered’ Book Event in Just 30 Minutes after Being Heckled.” Independent (Online) (London), 11 November 2019. ProQuest.
Urbandictionary.com, 30 October 2019, s.v. groyper.
Wiktionary, 4 August 2025, s.v. groyper.
Image credit: Groyper cartoon, unknown artist, 2015. Wikipedia. Fair use of a low-resolution copy of a copyrighted image to illustrate the topic under discussion.
