After months of threats, The Guardian newspaper of London has revealed the shocking news that my editor at Passage Press is a cultured, witty, athletic, and handsome family man who goes by the Twitter handle @L0m3z.
Although The Guardian’s exhaustive doxxing ran pictures of uninvolved randos like Kyle Rittenhouse, they didn’t run any of the subject of their doxing. So here’s one from the UC Irvine website from when he taught there.
I’m guessing this picture was snapped when Lomez was taking the family to nearby Disneyland. (Is that Captain Hook’s pirate ship in the background?)
From The Guardian news section:
Revealed: US university lecturer behind far-right Twitter account and publishing house
Guardian investigation identifies Jonathan Keeperman, a former lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, as ‘Lomez’
Jason Wilson
Tue 14 May 2024 06.00 EDTA Guardian investigation has identified former University of California, Irvine (UCI) lecturer Jonathan Keeperman as the man behind the prominent “new right” publishing house Passage Press and the influential Twitter persona Lomez.
The identification is based on company and property records, source interviews and open-source online materials.
The reporting has revealed that Keeperman’s current status as a key player and influential tastemaker in a burgeoning proto-fascist movement came after years of involvement in far-right internet forums.
Much of that journey coincided with his time at one of the country’s most well-regarded writing programs: Keeperman first came to UCI as a master of fine arts (MFA) student, and was also a lecturer in the English department from 2013 to 2022, according to public records.
The emergence of Passage Press and other such publishers has been a key part of the development of a swathe of the current American far right, which is seeking to capture US institutions—or develop far-right equivalents—as part of a political and cultural war against what it sees as the dominance of a liberal “regime” in America.
In a June 2023 podcast interview, Keeperman characterized Passage Press and its literary prize as part of this effort to “build out alternative infrastructure, alternative institutions”.
It is a fight wholeheartedly embraced by Donald Trump and his supporters in the Republican party, especially in their railing against “the deep state” and promises of retribution should Trump win the 2024 presidential election.
As everybody knows, the reason Volume I of Passage’s Unqualified Reservations by Mencius Moldbug has sold out is because Trump has gifted a copy to every member at Mar-a-Lago and all his other golf clubs.
The Guardian repeatedly contacted Keeperman requesting comment on this reporting, at a personal Gmail address and a Passage Press address, and left a voicemail message at a telephone number that data brokers listed as belonging to Keeperman, but which carried a message identifying it as belonging to a member of his household.
Keeperman did not directly respond to these requests. However, hours after a request on 1 May, “Lomez” on X castigated “lying, libelous journalist-activists” and appeared to make veiled legal threats. Another detailed request was sent on 5 May, and just an hour later, Passage Press’s star writer posted about a “major legacy media outlet threatening to dox a pseudonymous Twitter account”.
They didn’t link to the Tweet, but that was me:
A major legacy media institution has been threatening to dox a pseudonymous Twitter account for months. The funny thing is that the man behind the pseudonym isn't a 400 pound basement dweller, but is charismatic, articulate, athletic, a snappy dresser, and movie star handsome.
As for Jason Wilson, the freelance doxer “based in Portland,” not so much:
Then again, by the standards of Portland leftists, Wilson is as handsome as Paul Rudd:
Scary ideas – and wanting to be recognized
Passage Press books include a Tucker Carlson-blurbed anthology of writings by “human biodiversity” influencer Steve Sailer;
The Guardian links to the inactive Archive version of the page selling my book so that its subscribers can be properly scandalized by my anthology’s existence without being tempted to buy it. But you can buy it here.
a similar retrospective from “neo-reactionary” guru Curtis Yarvin; and a print version of the biannual Man’s World. …
Passage Press differs from many others in its niche in offering new work by the contemporary far-right’s intellectual celebrities, and in curating in-person events and a far-right literary award.
The publisher also produces high-end limited editions of selected titles. The “patrician edition” of Noticing, a book by Sailer, for example, is “bound in genuine leather, gold-foil stamping” and “Smyth-sewn book block”, according to the website.
Though lavishly produced, the “patrician” offerings appear to have generated significant income for Passage. At the time of reporting, Passage had sold out its limited run of 500 patrician editions of Noticing at $395 apiece, according to the website. This equates to some $195,000 in revenue.
Is this true that we’ve sold out the Patrician Edition? My impression we that we are close to selling out, so we’ve deemphasized marketing it in order to have a few dozen copies still available for strategic purposes.
An earlier patrician edition of winning entries in the 2021 Passage prize sold 250 editions at $400 apiece, according to the website, representing another $100,000 in revenue.
The publication of Noticing—also available as a $29.95 paperback—was spun out into a series of in-person events in Austin, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City, held in March, April and May.
Passage offered a $75 bundle comprising a copy of the book and a ticket to an in-person event, though the website warned prospective attendees: “Location details will be delivered via email. No photos or recordings of any kind will be permitted at these events.”
To prevent, say, doxxing of attendees by, say, The Guardian.
Buyers of the patrician edition could attend “salon events” in these cities for a $300 upcharge. These were advertised as “small, intimate spaces that include dinner, an open bar, and a unique conversational setting with Steve and special guests”. The website did not indicate how many salon tickets were available, but at the time of writing they had sold out.
… As the Twitter account grew, Lomez increasingly engaged in chummy interactions with prominent far-right figures including self-described eugenicist Bo Winegard, but above all with culture warrior Christopher Rufo, with whom Lomez has had dozens of interactions.
… Keeperman’s most influential publication as Lomez, however, may have been an essay published in “theocon” outlet First Things, which popularized a new right anti-feminist concept: “the longhouse”.
Here is his Longhouse essay in First Things.
The essay defines the longhouse as a metaphor for the supposed “overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior”.
Personally, I don’t get the “longhouse” metaphor, since they were features of distinctly chad cultures like the Normans, Mohicans, and Iroquois.
This metaphor has been widely adopted by writers on the anti-feminist right, including Rufo, religious conservative Rod Dreher and writers for outlets such as the American Mind.
… “I’m on my third [Twitter] account,” “Lomez” replied. “They’ve all been some version of Lomez. My, I mean, I’ve been posting in this Twitter space since about 2015-ish.”
He added: “I knew a lot of people from Steve Sailer’s comment section on his old iSteve blog, and a lot of the people who I ended up following on Twitter initially were people I recognized or were familiar to me from, from that comment section, and it was the kind of people that Sailer would link to.” …
An individual with the screen name “Mr Lomez” was a frequent commenter on Steve Sailer’s iSteve blog between 2012 and 2014. The archives of Sailer’s early blogging have since been transferred—along with comments—to the Unz Review, an aggregator of far-right content run by antisemitic software millionaire Ron Unz.
Mr Lomez posted criticisms of affirmative action in college admissions, commentary on the trial of George Zimmerman over his fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, and complaints about anti-immigrant parties being characterized as “far-right” in media coverage.
Mr Lomez also frequently flexed literary expertise, a deep knowledge of sports and a particularly intimate familiarity with college athletics.
In a post on 23 February 2013, Sailer was critical of the William Pereira-designed architecture at the UCI campus, with his post including a photograph of the Social Science Tower.
“Mr Lomez” commented: “My office is in that building. It’s as bad on the inside as it is on the out—claustrophobic and soulless. I feel like I’m in a rat maze.” …
Local news and high-school basketball reporting from 2000 indicates that as a high-school senior, [Lomez] was an accomplished football wide receiver and star basketball player for Campolindo high school in Moraga, in northern California.
He went on to play college basketball.
Moraga is the same northern California town where [Lomez] celebrated his bar mitzvah in 1996, according to a contemporaneous issue of the Jewish News of Northern California.
… In the last posts on the blog, there are hints of the racial thinking that “Mr Lomez” would later express on Sailer’s blog.
On 2 May 2007, in response to a a New York Times report on a study that found racial bias in NBA refereeing, Keeperman made an argument characteristic of “human biodiversity” proponents: “I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that black players get called for more fouls because black players do in fact commit more fouls.”
[Lomez] added: “Before calling me a racist, at least hear me out.”
