| 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, Reddit, and 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.
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.
British Jews have experienced antisemitism – discrimination and persecution as Jews – since a Jewish community was first established in England in 1070. They experienced a series of massacres in the Medieval period, which culminated in their expulsion from England in 1290. They were readmitted by Oliver Cromwell in 1655. By the 1800s, an increasing toleration of religious minorities gradually helped to eliminate legal restrictions on public employment and political representation. However, Jewish financiers were seen by some as holding disproportionate influence on British government policy, particularly concerning the British Empire and foreign affairs.
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, white supremacist, illustrator, Satanist 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 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.
r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit in the late 2010s.
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 political cartoonist and artist often considered part of the alt-right.. 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 President 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 former 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.
Freedom for Humanity was a temporary mural by the American artist Mear One, painted on a wall in Hanbury Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in mid-September 2012. It depicted men wearing business suits seated aside bent-over naked figures who formed a table while playing a Monopoly-like board game that rested on the naked figures' backs. Overseeing the scene is an Eye of Providence surrounded by images of industry and protest.
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 often allow those on the alt-right to maintain plausible deniability over their white supremacist, nazi, or other far-right views.
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.
StoneToss is a pseudonymous American neo-Nazi political cartoonist who publishes a webcomic of the same name. Launched in June 2017, the comic espouses racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, and antisemitic views, including 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.