| Happy Merchant | |
|---|---|
 Edited caricature illustration of a stereotypical Jewish man by "A. Wyatt Mann". | |
| First appearance | Artwork by A. Wyatt Mann |
The Happy Merchant is a common name for an image depicting an antisemitic caricature of a Jewish man. The image appears commonly on websites such as 4chan or X (formerly Twitter) where it is frequently used in hateful or disparaging contexts.
The image was first created by cartoonist A. Wyatt Mann (a wordplay on "A white man"), a pseudonym of Nick Bougas. [1] [2] [3] The image was part of a cartoon that also included a racist caricature of a black man and used these images to say: "Let's face it! A world without Jews and Blacks would be like a world without rats and cockroaches." The cartoon was first released in print, but appeared online in February 2001. [1]
The stereotypical image of a Jew from the cartoon began to spread on various internet communities, where users began to make variations of it. [1]
The Happy Merchant meme endorses the idea that Jews secretly conspire to conquer the world . [4]
The image is intended as a derogatory depiction, and employs many stereotypes of Jews. These include:
This image is a form of antisemitic propaganda, common on alt-right internet communities such as 4chan, other "chan" websites, and on other message boards. [6]
In 2017, Al Jazeera tweeted an image that included the Happy Merchant on its official English-language Twitter account. The tweet was promoting a story about climate change, and insinuated that Jewish people were behind climate change. Al Jazeera later deleted the tweet, explaining that it had been used in a segment covering alt-right antisemitic climate change conspiracy theories. [7]
A 2018 study published by Savvas Zannettou et al. focused on online antisemitism recorded that the Happy Merchant and its variations were "among the most popular memes on both 4chan's /pol/ board and Gab, two major outlets for alt-right expression. [8] The study found that usage of the Happy Merchant on /pol/ remained largely consistent (with a peak during the US airstrike on Syria in April 2017), while usage of the meme on Gab increased after the Charlottesville rally in August 2017. [9] It was also determined that /pol/ influences the spread of Happy Merchant to other web platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. [10]
The same study also found that the Happy Merchant has been incorporated into other common memes on the site, including Pepe the Frog. [11]
The Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government or Zionist-occupied government (ZOG), sometimes also called the Jewish occupational government (JOG), is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. It is a contemporary variation on the centuries-old belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. According to believers, a secret Zionist organization actively controls international banks, and through them governments, to conspire against white, Christian, or Islamic interests.
Historians continue to study and debate the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism has similarities and distinctions with its European counterpart.
Antisemitism in Norway refers to antisemitic incidents and attitudes encountered by Jews, either individually or collectively, in Norway. The mainstream Norwegian political environment has strongly adopted a platform that rejects antisemitism. However, individuals may privately hold antisemitic views. Currently, there are about 1,400 Jews in Norway, in a population of 5.3 million.
Owen Smith, known professionally as Owen Benjamin, is an American conspiracy theorist and internet personality known for promoting white supremacy, antisemitism, homophobia, and neo-Nazism. He was a stand-up comedian and actor who had roles in mainstream film and television between 2008 and 2015.
The European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (EISCA) was established in 2007 as a think-tank to examine the growth and development of antisemitism in the world today and to explore new strategies for countering it in all its forms. Its website was last updated in mid 2011.
Antisemitism in Spain is the expression through words or actions of an ideology of hatred towards Jews on Spanish soil.
/pol/, short for Politically Incorrect, is an anonymous political discussion imageboard on 4chan. As of 2022, it is the most active board on the site. It has had a substantial impact on Internet culture. It has acted as a platform for far-right extremism; the board is notable for its widespread racist, white supremacist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, misogynist, and anti-LGBT content. /pol/ has been linked to various acts of real-world extremist violence. It has been described as one of the "[centers] of 4chan mobilization", a title also ascribed to /b/.
Nicholas Bougas is an American documentary film director, illustrator and record producer. As a cartoonist, he has used the pen name A. Wyatt Mann to produce racist, antisemitic, antifeminist and homophobic cartoons.
Pepe the Frog is a famous comic character and Internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Designed as a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body, Pepe originated in Furie's 2005 comic Boy's Club. The character became an Internet meme when his popularity steadily grew across websites such as Myspace, Gaia Online, and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, he had become one of the most popular memes used on 4chan and Tumblr. Different types of Pepe memes include "Sad Frog", "Smug Frog", "Angry Pepe", "Feels Frog", and "You will never..." Frog. Since 2014, "§ Rare Pepes" have been posted on the "meme market" as if they were trading cards.
Triple parentheses or triple brackets, or an echo, often referred to in print as an ( ), are an antisemitic symbol that has been used to highlight the names of individuals thought to be Jews, and the names of organizations thought to be owned by Jews. This use of the symbol originated from the alt-right-affiliated, neo-Nazi blog The Right Stuff, whose editors said that the symbol refers to the historic actions of Jews which have caused their surnames to "echo throughout history". The triple parentheses have been adopted as an online stigma by antisemites, neo-Nazis, browsers of the "Politically Incorrect" board on 4chan, and white nationalists to identify individuals of Jewish background as targets for online harassment, such as Jewish political journalists critical of Donald Trump during his 2016 election campaign.
The Right Stuff is a neo-Nazi and white nationalist blog and discussion forum and the host of several podcasts, including The Daily Shoah. Founded by American neo-Nazi Mike Enoch, the website promotes Holocaust denial, and coined the use of "echoes", an antisemitic marker that uses triple parentheses around names to identify Jewish people.
Belgium is a European country with a Jewish population of approximately 35,000 out of a total population of about 11.4 million. It is among the countries experiencing an increase in both antisemitic attitudes and in physical attacks on Jews.
Benjamin R. Garrison is an American alt-right political cartoonist and artist. Several of Garrison's cartoons have been controversial. Various critics in the media have called him sexist, racist, anti-feminist, xenophobic, anti-government, and conspiratorial. Garrison has also been accused of antisemitism by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). His cartoons often lionize American conservative figures and politicians, such as former and current President-elect Donald Trump and Rand Paul and often express favorable views of Trumpism and its political positions, and demonize liberal, moderate, and Never Trump movement figures such as President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Some alt-right activists and Internet trolls have edited Garrison's comics to incorporate further offensive content, including the antisemitic "Happy Merchant" caricature.
Memetic warfare is a modern type of information warfare and psychological warfare involving the propagation of memes on social media. While different, memetic warfare shares similarities with traditional propaganda and misinformation tactics, developing into a more common tool used by government institutions and other groups to influence public opinion.
Paul Nehlen is a white supremacist and former Congressional candidate from Wisconsin. During the 2016 and 2018 Republican Party primary elections in Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, he spouted various racist, white nationalist, nativist, protectionist, and antisemitic views. In 2016 he was defeated by incumbent Paul Ryan by 84 to 16 percent. The 2018 primary was won by Bryan Steil; Nehlen came third.
Wojak, also known as Feels Guy, is an Internet meme that is, in its original form, a simple, black-outlined cartoon drawing of a bald man with a wistful expression.
"Hitler was right" and/or "Hitler did nothing wrong" are statements and internet memes either expressing support for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler or trolling. The ironic or trolling uses of the phrase allow those on the alt-right to maintain plausible deniability over their white supremacist views.
The Goyim Defense League (GDL) is an American neo-Nazi, reactionary and antisemitic hate group and conspiracy theory network of individuals who are active on social media websites and operate an online video platform called GoyimTV. The GDL also performs banner drops, papering neighborhoods with flyers, and other stunts to harass Jews. The GDL emerged in 2018 and is led by the antisemitic provocateur Jon Minadeo II. The GDL is currently tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
Antisemitism on social media can manifest in various forms such as emojis, GIFs, memes, comments, and reactions to content. Studies have categorized antisemitic discourse into different types: hate speech, calls for violence, dehumanization, conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.
Under the pen name of 'A. Wyatt Mann,' artist Nick Bougas has drawn many explicitly racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic cartoons where there isn't even a pretense of humor.
But internet anti-Semites (or at least people fishing for a reaction) started splicing Garrison's work together with the work of Nick Bougas, aka A. Wyatt Man, a director and illustrator responsible for one of the web's most enduring anti-Semitic images.