While most of 2017 so far has been marked by the constant and unsatisfying edging towards either an impeachment, economic implosion, or all-out war, there has been a shining moment of mystifying but karmically gratifying news — the hopefully final death knell of Milo Yiannopoulos’ career.
I mean, you could hold a level of sincere wonder at a man making something out of a start in tech journalism through only years of trolling, contrarianism, and blatant attention-seeking narcissism. But I mean, if that really surprises you this day and age you’re a chump who hasn’t been paying attention to the track record and career paths of self-proclaimed pundits and commentators on 24-hour news and the landscape of the internet. And you especially haven’t been paying attention to the last few years of a resurgent “right” that’s been propelled by failsons who fancy themselves edgelords, people who continue to follow and claim that “Gamergate” was about ethics in gaming journalism, red pillers, our resident alumni embarrassments, and hot air balloon baskets full of deplorables.
The reactionary British media personality has tried to pass himself off as a wry scoundrel and relentless proponent of free speech, especially in opposition to a demonized (if not sometimes justifiably) and overestimated campus left and social justice circles. Part of this shtick has included: advocating against gay rights even though he himself is openly gay; harassing people online until he got banned from Twitter; outing and mocking a transgender student (who was in the room at the time) at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee by displaying her name and photo onscreen during his presentation; and encouraging students at the University of New Mexico “in the spirit of Trump’s agenda” to purge their local illegals by calling the authorities on undocumented people and students. Recently a rumor of this happening again at the University of Berkeley not long ago prompted a response from antifa and students that turned violent and resulted in a riot. The final straw, for his compatriots and bedfellows in the movement who had originally planned to invite him to the Conservative Political Action Conference, was a recently resurfaced video where he made disgusting remarks about pedophilla.
It’s too bad that it took this long, but hopefully the former Breitbart editor can finally have his soapbox taken away. Hopefully this is the moment of sobriety for his Pepe-loving fans to realize that the only reason he’s been as successful as he is is a good business sense (in the sense that he took a bunch of money during a fundraiser for white male student grants and just kept it) and a posh accent. He’s a member of a long and storied pantheon of pundits and personalities that have gotten ahead purely on the basis of British accents sounding smart to stupid people and not necessarily on the thoroughness of their beliefs or the character of their beings. Good riddance, I hope this is a trend. Let’s knock off some Canadian trolls next for the sake of balance.
