You may have seen everyone posting their vaccination certificates on social media with the hashtag #JimsJabs, but it might not be as wholesome as it looks.
The trend started thanks to a TikTok campaign by Jim Penman – the real-life Jim from Jim’s Mowing – who has promised a free Jim’s Mowing shirt and bucket hat for the first howevermany people to tag him in their vaccination posts. So far over a million people have collectively viewed the countless TikToks that have been posted with the #JimsJabs hashtag.
Getting vaccinated is literally the most important thing you can do right now, and incentives in general are great. But encouraging young people to kiss Jim’s ass en masse is a convenient way to gloss over the fact that Jim’s actually a pretty out-there dude.
Jim (whose real name is not even Jim – it’s David) has been a vocal anti-lockdown shit-stirrer throughout the pandemic.
Then there’s the fact that he is obsessed with fringe race theories which claim that Europeans have dominated other races because they’ve historically been more physiologically inclined for success.
Even when it comes to his mowing business, Jim has a reputation of being intense as fuck. The dude even fired his own sister.
Let’s delve into why it’s maybe not the best idea to use your vaccination status as free advertising for Jim Penman of Jim’s Mowing (aside from, you know, uploading your private medical info in order to claim… a free shirt).
https://twitter.com/joshgnosis/status/1434795081307807746
Jim hates lockdowns
To be fair, everyone hates lockdowns. But there’s a difference between not enjoying being stuck at home and openly campaigning for looser restrictions during a crisis.
As early as mid-2020, Jim made a regular habit of publicly shitting on lockdown restrictions, well before it was cool.
When Victoria went into Stage 4 lockdown last year, Jim went on a media blitz to have a bit of a sook, describing certain restrictions as “lunacy”.
He even encouraged his franchisees to continue operating when they weren’t allowed to, and offered to pay any fines they might incur. Keep in mind there were some support payments like JobKeeper in place at the time.
At one point, he even partnered with fringe anti-lockdown groups to raise awareness (and, it would seem, money) for the cause, although he himself never directly funded any of these organisations.
https://twitter.com/Thejimpenman/status/1310029100677885954
In May, 2021, Penman harped up about Victoria’s lockdowns for the zillionth time.
“Jim has once again actively tried to interfere with the lockdown. He’s told people to ignore the government directions and go out and work,” an angry Jim’s Mowing franchisee told The Guardian.
More recently, Jim has been busy penning open letters to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian about the Sydney lockdown at a time when cases continue to climb like never before.
“I challenge you to present one case where a sole operator has passed on or received infection while gardening, washing a car, grooming a dog or building a fence,” he wrote.
He might not be wrong, but if he really cared about workers and franchisees, Jim would be campaigning for more generous emergency payments so people wouldn’t have to travel to go to work in the first place.
There have been plenty of valid criticisms of Australia’s endless lockdowns, especially in regards to supporting people who are out of work, but Jim’s singular pet hate isn’t one of them.
Jim has some weird opinions about race
A lot of people don’t know this, but Jim’s first love isn’t mowing: it’s actually an obscure theory of history and race known as biohistory.
Basically, this theory reckons that all the great events in human history can be chalked down to changes in brain or hormonal activity, which he splits into Restraint (later renamed Civilisation) and Vigour.
Jim reckons different races demonstrate different levels of Restraint and Vigour, which can supposedly be used to explain why Europe invaded and subjugated the whole world not too long ago.
He actually did a PhD on the matter in the 1980s before he decided to focus on his mowing business.
In 1992, the yardwork tycoon published his own book, The Hungry Ape, which elaborated some of his beliefs on the matter.
According to Vice, Jim wrote that Jews are traditionally driven by feelings of anxiety and insecurity, which is why “the key to their success has been high restraint, which has been linked to their trading skills as well as hard work.”
He also wrote that Aboriginal people are “unsuited in general to the discipline of academic study and of many jobs, they have become a poor-underclass.”
It gets worse.
“Black sexual behaviour is freer, on average, than that of whites,” Jim wrote.
“Unemployment is higher and occupational success lower, reflecting, alongside racial oppression, a lack of high-Restraint work ethic and commercial skills. Rates of crime are higher, because of the reduced respect for law and authority in lower-Restraint groups.”
By 2007, Jim used his fortune to fund research experiments on rats which he hoped would give credence to his theory.
His hope is that one day, scientists will come up with some kind of pill or nasal spray to stabilise everyone’s Restraint/Civisilation and Vigour, which would presumably turn all the different races into happy little workers.
“The most likely way for this to happen is for a minority segment of the population to reinforce traditional values with some form of Civilisation-promoting supplement,” Jim wrote in his 2015 book Biohistory.
“Over time, their economic success and higher birth rate would influence the wider society, especially given its ongoing decline.”
Jim literally fired his own sister
You don’t build a $500 million business empire without hurting a few feelings along the way.
Jim has earned a reputation for being a shrewd and at times ruthless businessman, perhaps because he has too much Vigour and not enough Civilisation.
According to staff and his own biography, workers who are perceived as not contributing enough get the sack.
“I also fired my sister and she has never spoken to me since,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age back in 2019.
“I have a very single-minded focus, more than 4,000 families depend on what we do and ultimately they are what counts.”
All adult Aussies (yep, even those of us under 40) are currently able to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Click here to see which clinics are offering it, and talk to a doctor for more info.
The best vaccine is the first one you can get, and that’ll be our ticket out of this mess.
