Happy Merchant

The Happy Merchant (also called "Jew-bwa-ha-ha.gif") is a common name for an image that depicts an antisemitic caricature of a Jewish man. The Happy Merchant is common on imageboards such as 4chan where it is frequently used in a hateful context.

Happy Merchant
Caricature illustration of a stereotypical Jewish man
First appearanceArtwork by A. Wyatt Mann.

History

The image was first created by a cartoonist called A. Wyatt Mann (a pseudonym that sounds like "A white man"). In 2015, BuzzFeed claimed that A. Wyatt Mann was actually Nick Bougas. The image was part of a cartoon that also included a racist drawing of a black man and said: "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 image of the Jew in the cartoon was cropped out and began to spread on various internet communities, where users began to make variations of it.[1]

Description

The image is intended as a derogatory depiction of Jewish people, and employs many stereotypes of Jews. These include:

  • A large, hook-shaped nose ("Jewish nose").
  • A yarmulke (Jewish head garment).
  • A malevolent smile and hands that are being rubbed together, to indicate greed or scheming behavior.
  • Balding black hair and a black beard.[2]

Use

The image is common on internet communities such as 4chan, other "chan" websites, and on other message boards.[3] 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 Jews were behind climate change. Al Jazeera later deleted the tweet, explaining that it had been used in a segment covering alt-right anti-semitic climate change conspiracy theories.[4]

A study published by Savvas Zannettou et al. on online anti-Semitism recorded the prevalence of the Happy Merchant and its variations on 4chan's /pol/ board and Gab. 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.[5] It was also determined that /pol/ influences the spread of Happy Merchant to other web platforms such as Twitter and Reddit.[6]

The same study also found that the Happy Merchant has been incorporated into other common memes on the site, including Pepe the Frog.[7]

The video game Ethnic Cleansing featured the image, although it was not yet called the Happy Merchant at that time.

References
  1. "The Surprisingly Mainstream History Of The Internet's Favorite Anti-Semitic Image". BuzzFeed News. p. 11. Retrieved 2021-07-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. Zannettou, Savvas (24 Nov 2019). "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism" (PDF). p. 2. arXiv:1809.01644. Retrieved 30 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. "The Happy Merchant". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 2021-07-30.
  4. Kestenbaum, Sam (31 May 2017). "Al Jazeera Tweets, Then Deletes, Anti-Semitic 'Greedy Jew' Meme". The Forward. Retrieved 2021-07-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. Zannettou, Savvas (24 Nov 2019). "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism" (PDF). p. 9. arXiv:1809.01644. Retrieved 30 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. Zannettou, Savvas (24 Nov 2019). "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism" (PDF). p. 11. arXiv:1809.01644. Retrieved 30 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. Zannettou, Savvas (24 Nov 2019). "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism" (PDF). p. 10. arXiv:1809.01644. Retrieved 30 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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