WHO'S WHO IN THE DISSIDENT RIGHT: THE Z-MAN

Why would anyone choose an avatar like this?

by Colin Liddell

A once anonymous blogger who was "outed" in February 2022 as "John Christopher Zander," 55, a software salesman residing in the Northern suburbs of Baltimore. His identity became known due to a data breach at domain registrar and web host Epik, a service he had previously recommended.

He became associated with a "race realist" Alt-Right position around about 2015, but was more of a crusty paleoconservative type. Since 2020, he has written for the rather tame Taki's Mag, which is connected to the UK's mainstream Conservative Spectator magazine. But, despite this "respectability" Zander was strangely afraid of being doxxed, hence his closely guarded Z-man persona. He may be of partial Italian American background, as he rather overreacted to an article that cast aspersions on Italian valour in WWII.

He started his Z-Man blog in 2013, after a history on comment sections and message boards. Relatively sane and nuanced on the JQ and other racial issues, he nevertheless has allowed himself to become associated with actual Nazis, for example by writing for Counter-Currents. He produces rather dull content with a strong streak of "boomer" fatalism and conspiritardary that makes him sound a lot older than he is -- he is actually Gen X. His American insularity was amply demonstrated by him mistaking Morgoth for a Scotsman!

Disturbingly, his chosen avatar is from a "homoerotic" artwork by the German artist Ludwig Thiersch, which shows the German barbarian Alaric the Visigoth being offered a small male child by a dark-haired man for unknown reasons. Make of that what you will.

Connected content:

______________________

Read other entries like this in Who's Who in the Dissident Right, an ever-expanding biographical guide to the dissident right and the sinister forces that attempt to exploit it.