This meme's status as a hate symbol is the perfect example of the negative outcome due to third party recomposition that DeVoss and Ridolfo explained in their article "Composing for Recomposing: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery." In addition, Furie's attempt to reclaim the meme by teaming up with the Anti Defamation League through can be seen as an attempt at recomposition of the situation, although there is no way to reverse the spread of the negative information. Like with Dawkins virus metaphor in regards to meme theory, the "infection" of the racist Pepe meme has already spread, making its way past small internet communities and into mainstream American culture, establishing itself as a symbol of hate through both propaganda and physical violence.

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To put this further into terms of rhetorical theory, you can consider applying Kenneth Burke's "Five Key Terms of Dramatism" to this situation and see how Furie's original motivation no longer has impact on the message of the piece once it has been appropriated and altered, as the Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, and Purpose of the situation have all changed from the symbols original situation (Bizzell, 1298). Using Burke's concepts to analyze Furie's original motive, you can argue that the Act was the creation of a bawdy-but-harmless comic book, the Scene was a store where he sold the comics, the Agent was Furie, the Agency was posting to the internet, and the Purpose was to share his creation or to make money (1298). The situation which Pepe became a hate symbol is so far removed from Furie's original purpose because of a series of constant re-compositions in the process of constant new creations due to rhetorical velocity in a digital community. 

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Both Jim Ridolfo's rhetorical velocity theory and Richard Dawkins' meme theory can be used to analyze the creation, rise to popularity, eventual public backlash, and the attempted reclamation of the Pepe the Frog meme. By analyzing how rhetorical velocity can be used as you compose a text-- for example, considering the medium in which it how it might be shared and how it might be edited or recomposed to fit a different context-- it is possible to anticipate how a meme might be created, spread, and recomposed at an exponential rate by third parties. In the case of Pepe the Frog, creator Matt Furie was aware when the meme first started to spread but did not consider that it might one day be appropriated as a hate symbol. Because of the permanent manner in which memes and other digital media is spread, remixed, and archived for future study, it is can be argued that it is impossible for Furie to reclaim and recompose the meme in any real way regardless of legal action based on copyright law, because the damage has already been done, or, to use Dawkins' metaphor, the virus has already spread.