The Happy Merchant is a common name for an image that depicts an

Anti-Jewish Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

caricature of a Jewish man. The Happy Merchant is common on imageboards such as

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

where it is frequently used in a hateful or disparaging context.

History

The image was first created by a cartoonist called A. Wyatt Mann (a

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...

on "A white man"), a pseudonym of Nick Bougas. 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. The stereotypical image of a Jew from the cartoon began to spread on various internet communities, where users began to make variations of it. The Happy Merchant meme endorses the idea that Jews secretly conspire to conquer the world''.''

Description

The image is intended as a derogatory depiction, and employs many

stereotypes of Jews Stereotypes of Jews are generalized representations of Jews, often caricatured and of a prejudiced and antisemitic nature. Common objects, phrases and traditions which are used to emphasize or ridicule Jewishness include bagels, the complaining ...

. These include: * A large, hook-shaped nose ("

Jewish nose Jewish nose or Jew's nose is a usually exaggerated ethnic stereotype that refers to a hooked nose with a convex nasal bridge and a downward turn of the tip of the nose.. The 'Jewish nose' was singled out as a hostile caricature of Jews in mid-13t ...

"); * A

yarmulke A , , or , plural ), also called ''yarmulke'' (, ; yi, יאַרמלקע, link=no, , german: Jarmulke, pl, Jarmułka or ''koppel'' ( yi, קאפל ) is a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, traditionally worn by Jewish males to fulfill the c ...

(Jewish head garment); * A malevolent smile, with a slightly hunched back and hands being rubbed together, to indicate

greed Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as Social status, status, or Power (social and politica ...

or scheming; * Balding, tightly curled black hair and a tightly curled black beard.

Use

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. In 2017,

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate 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 In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, and insinuated that Jewish people were behind

. Al Jazeera later deleted the tweet, explaining that it had been used in a segment covering

alt-right The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...

antisemitic climate change

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

. 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/ /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 while acting as a platform for far-r ...

board and Gab, two major outlets for alt-right expression.Zannettou, Savvas, Tristan Caulfield, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Michael Sirivianos, Gianluca Stringhini, and Guillermo Suarez-Tangil. "On the Origins of Memes by Fringe Web Communities." arXiv.org, September 22, 2018. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.12512. The study found that usage of the Happy Merchant on

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 The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, Neo-Nazism, neo- ...

in August 2017. It was also determined that /pol/ influences the spread of Happy Merchant to other web platforms such as

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

. The same study also found that the Happy Merchant has been incorporated into other common memes on the site, including

Pepe the Frog Pepe the Frog () is an Internet meme consisting of a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body. Pepe originated in a 2005 comic by Matt Furie called ''Boy's Club''. It became an Internet meme when its popularity steadily grew across Myspa ...

References

Notes Bibliography *

External links

* {{Nick Bougas Internet memes Antisemitic works Alt-right /pol/ phenomena Stereotypes of Jewish people Caricature Nick Bougas 2001 works Individual printed cartoons Fictional Jews Internet characters introduced in 2001 Fictional salespeople