SPEAKER_01:
It's the latest development in what has become known as Gamergate, an online culture war.

Tig:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Neutral Good, a progressive podcast that dives into politics and gaming. The entire first season of Neutral Good is about hashtag Gamergate. So if you haven't gone back and listened to the other episodes, I highly recommend them. In the previous episode, we learned about the history and creation of Vivian James, 4chan's mascot, quote unquote, for the Gamergate movement. Vivian became a sort of pop culture icon across 4chan, and to this day, we still see her face in the thumbnails of YouTube videos expounding on the wild and wacky times that were Gamergate. If you'd like to listen to that episode and more, head on over to www.neutralgoodpodcast.com. In this episode, we'll be learning about Milo Yiannopoulos and how he contributed to Gamergate increasing exposure and simultaneously honing the narrative. I'll be laying out how Milo is a grifter, a clout-seeking lightning rod for the most unhinged takes coming out of the culture wars. Milo was an editor and writer at Breitbart News from 2014 to 2017, until he resigned after a series of clips surfaced, but we'll get into that and the Neo-Nazis shortly. Oh sorry, I kind of sprung the Nazis on you out of nowhere. Content warning, this episode contains language and views that are extremely unpleasant at the least. Misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, racism, and other forms of hate may make an appearance. I don't condone any of it. And if you're uncomfortable with the language of this episode, please feel free to hit that pause button and make space for yourself. Milo Yiannopoulos is, and this is the most boring description I could find, thanks Wikipedia, a British right-wing political commentator. His speeches and writings criticize Islam, feminism, social justice, and political correctness, which makes him sound like Ben Shapiro, but British, which he is absolutely not. As I mentioned in the introduction, Milo wrote for Breitbart News from 2014 to 2017. What is Breitbart? Let me read some names to you from the big word cloud of key influencers interviewed recently on Breitbart platforms. Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Candace Owens, Josh Hawley, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, Jordan Peterson. Charlie Kirk, Greg Abbott, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Ted Cruz, Roseanne Barr. Have I made an impression yet? I think the best description I could find was from Rational Wiki, which describes Breitbart as buzzfeed for Nazis. Let's lay out some of the articles Milo's written for Breitbart News. 16 movements less ridiculous than Black Lives Matter. Donald Trump would be the first real black president. Does feminism make women ugly? Gay hate crime is a thing of the past. Why does the gay lobby wish it wasn't? Here's why there ought to be a cap on women studying science and maths. Do poor people have a crime gene? The Economist says maybe. Muslim gang rapists are springing up everywhere. Why can't we be honest about it? As demonstrated from the headlines, Milo's known for writing snarky, over-the-top articles that are quite obviously meant to aggravate and inflame. In September of 2014, he wrote a piece about Gamergate for Breitbart, which incidentally brought fresh and eager eyeballs to the aging site. Milo even posted about the article's success on social media, tweeting, and he links back to Breitbart. In the article, Yiannopoulos has not-so-nice things to say about feminists, politically correct American tech bloggers, journalists, and, specifically, Zoe Quinn. I dedicated an entire episode of this podcast, this very podcast, to Zoe's story. So if you're interested in learning more context and filling in some of the backstory, then please check out episode 3 of Neutral Good. To sum up the Breitbart article, Milo mentions Zoe in 85% of the paragraphs. and it so plainly and ghoulishly, I might add, paints Zoe and SJW activists as the cause of this grassroots reaction from gamers downplaying the harassment Zoe and others received and even questioning their moral character. He even links directly to the internet aristocrat video that I covered in episode 2 of this podcast. While some may make the claim that Milo was simply covering the other less represented side of Gamergate and bringing light to the corruption in the media, the amount of time he spends writing about Zoe's apparent lack of game development skill is laughable and completely undermines his credibility. At one point he even boldly writes a game anyone could have made about Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest. Now, I'm not aware of any games Milo's released, but perhaps I'm too uncultured. It's very obvious in this context that Yiannopoulos is simply writing to his audience. That's been his modus operandi the entire time. Write inflammatory content, eschewing the truth, get clicks, earn clout.

SPEAKER_02:
Because if I want to cry myself to sleep every night, I could just read my Twitter feed. No, I love it. I get off on it. I love it. You know, I give my trolls marks out of 10. But that's you and you're a special kind of animal. I'm a little broken.

Tig:
I'm a little broken. In 2015, he'd become such a controversial figure that he landed himself a few interviews on TV and radio with organizations on both sides of the aisle, often speaking about Gamergate and his other writings and, depending on how friendly the host is, spouting homophobia, transphobia, and racism. In an interview with Steven Crowder on WAAM Talk 1600 Radio, Yiannopoulos even says outright, if I wasn't gay, I'd be a huge homophobe. I really hope I don't have to explain how misguided this is, but in case we're not clear, you can have hate in your heart no matter how you identify. Anyone can have racist, homophobic, transphobic thoughts in their head. We're all human. We're all susceptible to propaganda in our environments and even things as simple as peer pressure. The desire to fit in can shape a lot of one's actions and sometimes, eventually, their beliefs. But just because one might be part of a minority, it doesn't give their transphobia or racism any more credibility. Milo's willingness to spread terrible, hurtful stereotypes about gay people is equal misguided whether he's gay, straight, bi, or pansexual. The harm it causes, the impact, is the same either way." He goes on in that same interview to state several incorrect facts about transgender folks, about how those who get gender-affirming surgeries always regret it, when the real numbers show a regret rate of approximately 1% and knee surgery clocks in at up to 30%? These statements can be easily fact-checked, but according to Milo, we live in a post-fact era now, so maybe that's how he lives with himself? Milo Yiannopoulos was hired by Steve Bannon, known famously as the man appointed Trump's chief strategist, who previously headed Breitbart as chairperson, and is on the record having said in a custody battle with his ex-wife that he, quote, didn't want their daughters to go to school with Jews, end quote. Bannon loved Milo, though. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, While anchoring the Breitbart Daily News satellite radio show, he would repeatedly lavish praise on Yiannopoulos, comparing his courage to that of Winston Churchill, and his provocative commentary to that of Breitbart's late founder, Andrew Breitbart. He described Milo as one of the leading voices of his generation in his whole fight against cultural Marxism and the defense of Western civilization. Bannon first learned about the power of the young male gamers when he took over IGE in 2005, a company that according to USA Today employed low-wage Chinese workers to play World of Warcraft and earn in-game gold that could be traded for virtual goods which would be resold to players for real money. At the time of writing, World of Warcraft had about 10 million subscribers. Eventually, Blizzard shut down the Goldfarmer's accounts and IGE was sued in a class action lawsuit from players who said the company was substantially impairing players' enjoyment of the game. The success of the business didn't matter to Bannon though. What did matter was the angry young male community that had formed on the company's forums. This was the pre-alt-right. In the USA Today article, Bannon says this about gamers. These guys, these rootless white males, had monster power. It was the pre-Reddit. It's the same guys who were later on Reddit and other online message boards where the alt-right flourished. When Bannon became executive chairperson of Breitbart News, he realized he could leverage Milo's connection to the younger generation of gamers and is quoted in Joshua Green's book, Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and a storming of the presidency as saying, you can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever, and they get turned on to politics and Trump.

SPEAKER_02:
It was a molestation. That's absolutely a molestation. It was perfectly consensual. I don't think it is when they're 14. When I was 14, trust me, I was the predator.

Tig:
In a wild turn of events, three days after a spicy interview with Bill Maher in February of 2017, a series of clips surfaced featuring Yiannopoulos allegedly stating to Joe Rogan that relationships between 13 year old boys and adults can be, quote, perfectly consensual, end quote, and, quote, positive experiences for such boys, end quote, shortly after which he resigned from his position in Breitbart, stating it would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues' important reporting.

SPEAKER_02:
And I wouldn't phrase it this way again, because it was not quite what I meant. And it was, let's say, incautiously phrased, to put it mildly. What I said was that relationships between older men and younger men are a common function of gay life. And I think I said, I'm afraid I think I said after a lot of drinks on a late night live stream, they can be hugely positive experiences. I shouldn't have put it like that.

Tig:
Later on in the same year, Milo would come under fire for collaborating with neo-Nazis in a trove of emails published by BuzzFeed News. In an attempt to take back the alt-right, Yiannopoulos planned on writing a big feature about the topic, and in 2016 he quietly reached out to several prominent figures in the alt-right scene for advice on what to write about, including people like Andrew Weave Orenheimer, Systems Administrator for the Neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer. Curtis Yarvin, whose nom de plume is Mencius Moldbug and who founded the Neo-Reactionary Movement. And Devin Saucier, whose pseudonym is Henry Wolfe and helps edit the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance. And he even sent a copy to the alt-right writer Vox Dei. Not only did he contact these folks, he went back and forth with them on edits multiple times. Milo eventually sends a copy to Breitbart's editor Alex Marlow, who specifically wanted the focus to be on how the alt-right rejected actual neo-Nazis from the movement. Delicious irony. That piece is still up and available online to this day on Breitbart's site. The link is in the show notes for those of you with an iron stomach. Up until this point, Milo had been proudly gay, especially when it suited him politically. I'm a gay Jew, he explained to Kathy Newman in a Channel 4 interview in 2016, link in the show notes, alluding to difficulties faced in his life. His mother is Jewish and he says he's a practicing Catholic. The cognitive dissonance of a gay man practicing Catholicism was even a hot topic during the 2017 interview with Bill Maher on his HBO show. But since everything is a spectacle to Milo, it's no surprise that he'd play directly into the absurdity of publicly practicing a religion that doesn't think he should exist. His articles about gay culture would be written from the perspective of someone with authority and experience, adding a layer of plausible deniability to his often bigoted jabs at common tropes he saw in the gay communities. Remember, this is the man who told Steven Crowder, if I wasn't gay, I'd be a huge homophobe. This is important. We'll circle back.

SPEAKER_02:
Hello and welcome to the Church Milton Shop. My name is Milo Yiannopoulos and I'm here with my co-host, Deborah Bourne. How are you doing today, Deborah? I'm doing okay. How are you? I'm well. I'm happy because this is the first of our shows and we're beginning today with, well, probably the most important woman in history, wouldn't you say? I think so.

Tig:
So, in 2021, Milo's career wasn't doing so well anymore. This guy, who was Steve Bannon's protege and on track to be so much more, was now hawking religious tchotchkes. That's right, Milo Yiannopoulos is now basically an infomercial host for a religious version of the Home Shopping Network.

SPEAKER_02:
sections of very highly polished sterling silver. The chain also helps because the chain there kind of picks out the shiny elements and this is another one of those things that has dimension in the fabric although it's a more stylized.

Tig:
And now foreseeably to smooth over any tension with the fundamentalists in the audience, Milo declared that he is, quote unquote, an ex-gay, telling pro-life Christian news website LifeSite, I don't suppose I'll ever be brave enough to declare it a thing of the past. I treat it like an addiction. You never stop being an alcoholic. He claims to have demoted his husband to the status of housemate, demonstrating pretty obviously that all of this is still a bit to him.

SPEAKER_01:
Next stop. Milo Yiannopoulos. I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about the fact that he has come out and said not only that he is ex-gay, being a very high-profile homosexual man but that also he is a Christian.

Tig:
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Neutral Good. I really appreciate your support and I hope I can continue to bring you these stories. In doing the research for this episode, I watched a funny and educational video about Milo called The Downfall of Milo Yiannopoulos. It's available on YouTube and I'll put a link in the show notes. Please go support that creator. They made some great content. I'll also include links to Milo being interviewed by both Jordan Peterson and Bill Maher if you're looking for ways to quickly lose your mind. I'm your host, Tig, and this has been Neutral Good.