Through a spokesperson, Schreck confirmed that Bougas is the cartoonist A. Wyatt Mann.
So. You could stop right there and say that Nick Bougas is the most widely disseminated anti-Semitic cartoonist of all time and not be wrong.
But still: Does that look like a white nationalist to you? Indeed, the images of Bougas on the internet ? handkerchief around neck, flowing dyed-blonde hair under flamboyant hats ? depict a man who looks more like a pickup artist or a magician than a hardcore race warrior. He was clearly a figure of a, or many, sub-countercultures. And in the early 1990s, in the throes of American culture's most public engagement with the idea of "political correctness" (at least
until now
), a limited counterculture sprung up that defined itself against what it defensively perceived as the new prevailing values.
Spin
magazine described the house publication of this movement in its
"Worst Things of the 90s"
:
This sentiment ran parallel to punk and D.I.Y. culture becoming more diverse, and no doubt, there were plenty of alienated bros peeved that they now had to consider the points of view of women and minorities. At the top of this contrarian trash heap was infuriated, working-class whiteboy Jim Goad, who created Answer Me!, a fuck-your-feelings, catch-all zine...
So was Bougas a fervent white nationalist or a kind of race-baiting hipster, a guy for whom associating with a leading white supremacist (Tom Metzger) might carry with it a certain subversive and/or countercultural cool? Parfrey told BuzzFeed News that Bougas' "perspective was similar to Tom Metzger," but then, would Tom Metzger befriend a Jew? Would he date one? According to public records, Nick Bougas ? A. Wyatt Mann, the author of the most prevalent image of anti-Semitism on the internet ? owns a house in Cumming, Georgia, with a woman named Sandra
Weinberg
. According to
this cached artist's profile
page, Weinberg is Bougas' "devoted 'galpal.'"
OK, so what? What does it mean that "Jew-bwa-ha-ha.gif" likely isn't the work of a raving Nazi or some corn-fed Aryan brother, but the doodling of a disaffected provocateur hopelessly misguided by a very specific cultural moment? On one hand, not much. Who cares where these images come from? They still do their damage.
On the other hand, it's worth wondering whether Bougas' cultural moment is over at all. The idea that ironized racism and sexism and anti-Semitism are the bravest subversions of American culture still lives, not in zines or even
Vice
, anymore, but in subreddits, and chans, and red pill message boards. That's why it is so fitting that Bougas' work has found its best reception in these places. That's why it is so fitting that these places so aggressively
sont Charlie.
And maybe the influence of Bougas' sensibility ? of the terminally ironic "Jew-bwa-ha-ha.gif" ? over the internet is even more direct, even personal. Have a look at the picture below. On the left is Nick Bougas. And on the right is a
man
who
you probably recognize
, a
hero
to
many
of the very same
people
on the internet who made "Jew-bwa-ha-ha.gif" what it is today.