About

Provocateur refers to a two-panel comic in which the subject instigates a fight between two groups of people. After sending them into violence, the instigator rubs his hands and smiles, evoking the antisemitic character the Happy Merchant. Many have used the meme to express racist, xenophobic and/or bigoted opinions.

Origin

On October 29th, 2012, an anonymous 4chan user posted the earliest known usage of the comic on the /tv/ message board.^[1] The first panel features the subject labeled "LIBERAL MEDIA," who points at two rich people, directing three others, who represent political radicals and people of color, to attack. The second panel shows the police beating the attackers, leaving "the rich" unharmed" and the "LIBERAL MEDIA" rubs his hands and smiles, implying that it's the result he hoped for (shown below). The drawing of the "LIBERAL MEDIA" character evokes the antisemitic Happy Merchant meme through the character's illustration, i.e. the hooked nose, malevolent smile and rubbing hands. The meme expresses the antisemitic trope that Jewish people control the media. In this case, they use that power to provoke a culture war.

Spread

Over the next two years, the comic continued to spread on 4chan. On August 14th, 2014, for example, an anonymous 4chan^[2] user posted a variation of the comic to reference the political crisis in Turkey. They also included a Nazi flag next to the post.

The comic continued to spread to Reddit,, ^[3] Twitter ^[4] and FunnyJunk ^[5] gaining popularity due to its versatility in illustrating situations that sparked debate or wars, with the characters often being represented by countries or historical figures (example below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References