Meet the living, walking meme of conservative British politics
His composite name is the epitome of a British stereotype. He's so blatantly posh that he recently named his sixth son Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher. And he's becoming a social media superstar.
We're talking about right-wing Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose following of over 36,000 makes him more popular than Prime Minister Theresa May, at least on the photoblogging platform.
But while his old-timey image seems entertainingly ridiculous, it's important to keep in mind that his pro-Brexit, pro-Trump, anti-same sex marriage views are further right than even his own Conservative Party.
The 48-year-old backbencher announced the birth of Sixtus with a tender Instagram post that earned him thousands of enthusiastic followers:
Fans and right-wing supporters gathered around the #Moggmentum buzzword, kicking off an avalanche of memes and gifs on social media.
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But naturally Rees-Mogg's eccentricity didn't start with Instagram.
Often sporting a tweed suit that speaks of a bygone era of glorious British countryside and P.G. Wodehouse novels, Rees-Mogg ticks all the boxes of the British elite class:
Son of a former Times editor and peer? Tick!
Eton education? Tick!
Read history at Oxford? Tick!
Despite his traditional upper class upbringing, a few quirky moments earned him fame among the public, who began to appreciate his plummy accent and posh manners.
One of such examples, from 2012, is when he broke the record for the longest word ever used in Parliament -- "Floccinaucinihilipilification", a 29-letter word meaning the "act or habit of estimating as worthless" which he said that casually came to his mind while speaking.
He once dared to call himself a "man of the people" with a Latin sentence -- vox populi, vox dei -- and similarly used Latin in his first tweet:
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Hardly popular, the adage nonetheless perfectly exemplifies Rees-Mogg's curiosity towards new media: "The times change, and we change with them."
How else would anyone explain his Instagram posts depicting his family, which seem straight from a Wes Anderson movie:
...as many people have noticed:
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Rees-Mogg's son is basically a smaller version of him, wearing the same double-breasted suit:
They really love campaigning with their dad:
Sixtus' siblings have quite peculiar names. They are: Tom Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Peter Theodore Alphege, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam, and Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius.
The only girl in the Rees-Mogg squad has more usual names (which kinda raises some questions): Mary Anne Charlotte Emma.
But don't be mistaken, Rees-Mogg is well aware of his appeal as a freakish, out-of-time outsider and knows how to play all of us with it, as his Twitter response to Private Eye -- a British satirical institution -- shows:
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So the lesson is: don't get fooled by Rees-Mogg appearance of an amiable, harmless toff.
Beyond the constructed, almost comical persona of an old-fashioned chap from rural Somerset is an ardent Brexiter who expressed support for Donald Trump and voted against same-sex marriage.
A passionate campaigner and vocal critic of his own Conservative party, Rees-Mogg voted against bills to scrap the bedroom tax and teach first aid in schools, and supported the controversial tax credit's rape clause.
His voting and filibustering record may help explain why he's basically become the poster boy of the Right in Britain, as many memes on Facebook groups such as "Reem memes with a right wing theme" demonstrate:
Right-wing pundits such as James Delingpole are already calling The Mogg "the perfect antidote to Corbynism," in reference to the surprising appeal that opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has among millennials.
The MP even has a "grassroots" movement revolving around the Twitter account @MoggMentum and the eponymous hashtag -- a dig to "Momentum", a grassroots campaigning network supporting Corbyn -- is "to get @Jacob_Rees_Mogg into Number 10".
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The group even produced a video on "Why Jacob Rees Mogg must be Prime Minister."
"Time to get the youth back on side!" reads Moggmentum's description.
Corbynistas and Milifandom are warned.
