Anti-Racist Canada: The ARC Collective: London, ON Proud Boy Nicolas Bennett Behind Extremist Telegram Channel

The Proud Boys always insist they aren't neo-Nazis. They use this plausible deniability (members from various backgrounds, supposedly not allowing neo-Nazis) as a shield against criticism, instead referring to their opposition as the "real fascists." They even request that applicants not be neo-Nazis.

On the surface, anyway. It seems that once they're part of this fraternity, their views aren’t a concern.

Earlier today We Will Be Ruthless exposed the antisemitic discourse in a Proud Boy Telegram group, causing an immediate response from Proud Boy accounts that it's not theirs.

Let's see whats going on in the "Proud Boys" terrorgram chat right about now... pic.twitter.com/ItkLF4nyDc
— We Will Be Ruthless (@RuthlessWe) June 21, 202

Since Ruthless' tweet, Tim Kelly, who was a member of the chat, changed his username. The subject of this article also remains a member.

We first noticed Nicolas (Nick) Bennett in a Telegram chat run by, but not exclusive to, Proud Boys (specifically Tim Kelly and others.) He and Kelly are so tight that Bennett was the third member to join the chat.

This chat is explicitly racist, and includes a number of users that the Proud Boys would have you believe they don't associate with. Some users have neo-Nazi imagery as their profile pic. Others express overt white nationlism.

Bennett used to go by the name "Invictus Maneo," before changing it to "Corn Pop" in early June.

Bennett's "Corn Pop" profile on Telegram

Bennett is a tattooer located in London, ON, where he owns a shop called Vision Tattoo Studio.

Bennett's LinkedIn

The name change to Vision Tattoo Studios occurred on January 26, 2016

Vision Tattoo Studios' Instagram account with address obscured by us

Bennett doesn't hide the fact that he's a Proud Boy. He's written an article for the Proud Boy Magazine, and has posted pictures of camping trips with other Proud Boys.

"The real reich," eh?

He isn't a stranger to controversy on his business Facebook page. In 2017 someone put anti-racist stickers up at his shop in protest. He responded by stating that yes, he is a Proud Boy, and argued with people who would rather not give their money to an extremist-run tattooer. Bennett also had friends try and beef up his reviews, after threatening those who left 1-star reviews with a lawsuit.

In these arguments, Bennett claimed that 80% of women aged 18-30 are raped by migrants

We'll be getting to Bennett's REAL thoughts on fascism shortly

Bennett also runs an extreme neo-Nazi Telegram channel, which he started in November 2019. He runs the channel separately from his account he participates in the Proud Boys-run chat with, although he frequently shares content from his channel to the chats he belongs to.

The original name of the channel was Turbo N----- Hyper F-----. He still uses a variation of that in the name. He spends a great deal of his time extolling the virtues of fascism, targeting Jews and women, and praising Adolf Hitler. His channel is exceptionally violent.

Screenshot of an export of the channel content

A play on the political axis test, Bennett also shared version where the upper right corner was where he placed on the authoritarian scale

George Lincoln Rockwell's "hate bus"

The Turner Diaries was the inspiration for the Oklahoma bombing and is considered a manual of sorts among accelerationist neo-Nazis looking to bring about the race war

Bennett complaining that civic nationalists (far-right people with ideologies like the Yellow Vests) need to embrace full-on fascism.

The neo-Nazi conspiracy the Jews are behind the supposed "Muslim invasion"

Bennett believes that the Jews are behind communism, so what he's really saying here is that he'd love to go after Jews and leftists

A number of images of quotes from historical figures, including Remer and Hitler

Yeah, white males are underrepresented in government. Sure.

His previous Twitter account, @njb61, was very similar to an email address on his resumé that he uploaded to LinkedIn. (Yes, he uploaded an entire resumé to LinkedIn.)

Bennett's current Twitter account (or, his 6th) is used primarily to push fascism, claims we're in the middle of a race war, and perpetuates the neo-Nazi theory that communism is a Jewish conspiracy.