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Few stars are rising faster at the moment than that of conservative writer/broadcaster Milo Yiannopoulos. Virtually unknown just three years ago, the Greco-British journalist, 32, is now fast approaching the kind of iconoclastic status attained by such writers as Gore Vidal and HL Mencken (both of whom expended considerably more time and effort to achieve it).
What can explain this success?
Well – for one thing, Yiannopoulos is a quite formidable debater, and it is for this talent that he is primarily known. Type in ‘Milo Yiannopolous’ into YouTube and many of the videos returned to you will have titles containing words like ‘destroys’, ‘eviscerates’, ‘owns’ and so on… These are not exaggerations. Yiannopoulos has a unique way of making the people he engages seem naive, foolish and weak-minded. He is even – I have found – able to achieve this effect when the other person is in the right; and there is surely no greater testament to a debater’s skill than that.
Yiannopoulos is not merely good with words, he is good with emotions, presenting his side of any argument in a relaxed, self-assured and matter-of-fact style that naturally makes the arguments of the other side seem less certain, more bizarre and fundamentally weaker. In this sense he reminds me in speech of Mark Steyn in print. Both put to use the same rhetorical trick – the insinuation – quite deliberate – that they know they are right. Both treat contrary points of view as amusing, forgivable, even charming eccentricities. Yiannopoulos and Steyn are not trying to make the other side look stupid, so they have us believe, they are trying are help them understand reality – and by arguing this way, they do make them look stupid. There is surely no better way of wounding an intellectual’s reputation than to sympathise with his failures and politely excuse his errors.
Yiannopoulos’s writing, though less spectacular than his debating, still passes with ease any quality test for the journalistic mainstream. Here is a representative excerpt from an article taking down the goodwill-bloated ‘astrophysicist’ Neil Degrasse Tyson:
“Neil deGrasse Tyson is a philistine with no love of learning except for popularisations and oversimplifications that serve his political purposes… (He) constantly situates himself in the big brain league, but he has done nothing in his life to demonstrate that he belongs there — and a lot to suggest he doesn’t…. (He) claims to have been “mentored” by Carl Sagan, for instance. Yet it appears this “mentorship” boils down to little more than a couple of traded letters. If Tyson thinks that qualifies as mentorship, I wonder what he’d call my nocturnal liaisons with other men who share his skin colour. Adoption?… As dumb as Tyson is, his fans are even more preposterously thick, which is probably to be expected given that they’re all liberals. But the extent to which they hoover up and retweet his contradictory and brainless provocations is matched only by the hilarity of the occasional social justice car crash, in which the politics of grievance that Tyson likes to encourage comes back to bite him.”
But neither Yiannopoulos’s skill in writing or debating can fully explain his meteoric ascent. Beyond the mechanics of his profession, Yiannopoulos is himself remarkable. For one thing, he is gay. Indeed, if homosexuality can be graded, he is very gay; audaciously, flamboyantly so. He is also Greek, Jewish and Catholic. This exotic quality, brim-full of apparent contradiction (Gay, Jewish, Catholic, Conservative – are not words used to being in each other’s company), has combined with Yiannopoulos’s oratorical (and occasionally bitchy) style to produce a ready-made object of media fascination. Yiannopoulos gets ratings up in a way no other public commentator has since the death of Christopher Hitchens, a person with whom the journalist bears many important similarities.
Like Hitchens, Yiannopoulos expresses with intelligence arguments traditionally expressed with stupidity. Though I do sympathise with many right-wing concepts, it is nevertheless a fact of politics that the conservative side of the political spectrum attracts more dullards than the liberal side. Many – perhaps the majority – of those inclined to oppose Islam, for example, do so in a crude, yobbish style that puts off the discerning classes and fails to excite anyone else.
Yiannopoulos is successful precisely because he refines gut-sentiments into intelligent arguments. People watch Yiannopoulos debate Islam on television and scream ‘That’s what I think!” or “That’s what I’ve always said!”. He articulates feelings many desperately want to – but cannot – put into words.
So, that’s the good. Now for the bad.
Despite the considerable talents I have described, Yiannopoulos is not without his faults. He has, for one thing, consistently demonstrated a worrying lack of intellectual discipline; a tendency to seek controversy (for its own sake) over positive political impact. On twitter the writer has repeatedly engaged in pointless arguments with entirely apolitical pop-cultural figures, most recently Leslie Jones, the simple-minded comedienne and star of the much-maligned 2016 Ghostbusters remake. After a brief back and forth over various trifles, Milo made a joke implying that Jones (who is admittedly unfeminine looking) is actually a man. This comment then led to Yiannopoulos’s twitter account being deleted by the administrators of the site – (he is still banned).
Was this necessary? Did it serve a purpose? I don’t think so.
Like this author, Yiannopoulos is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump’s 2016 bid for the US Presidency and has written countless articles explaining this support, most of which have been reasoned and compelling. But on this matter, too, he has a tendency to drift into inexplicable weirdness. Yiannopoulos often refers to Mr Trump in a sexualised voice as ‘Daddy’ and once stated that the “trashier” the Republican nominee becomes the more he loves him.
Now, I have no moral objection to any of this, but surely such unseriousness runs the risk of undoing the good work the journalist has done elsewhere. Once again I ask, is it necessary? Does it serve a purpose? Does Milo wish to be a neo-Orwellian truth-teller or a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother? Christopher Hitchens or Pete Burns? One cannot combine the two aspirations indefinitely.
The atheist Voltaire once remarked that the only prayer he had ever offered was ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous’. I can well imagine Islamists and Leftists offering this same plea to the Almighty in view of current political circumstances. On the issue of Islam – as on many others – we are so far in the right that a misstep on our part is probably the best the opposition can hope for. Milo and others would do well to bear this in mind.
On balance, I am of the opinion that Milo Yiannopoulos can be a very effective soldier for the anti-Islamist cause. His oratorical skill, humour and minority-status make him a very difficult target for the Left to hit with their favoured weaponry. They cannot possibly call Milo, a gay man of partially Jewish descent, irrational or paranoid for worrying about the advance of ISIS. They cannot possibly accuse him of being a Nazi, a White nationalist, or a possessor of ‘privilege’ (the Left’s favourite buzzword of the moment). Milo’s exotic qualities form a wall of confusion around his arguments, giving them a better chance of being considered for what they mean rather than as an extension of who formed them.
And while there are those who will object outright to the inclusion of an actively gay man in the conservative movement, one must strive to remember that the threat of Islam is so broad that it will necessarily require an equally broad coalition to prevent its success.
If you find the right’s embrace of Yiannopoulos strange, you’ll be even more surprised by what the future holds.
D, LDN.
Defend the Modern World 
I’ve read a couple of his articles, including one in which his argument was that people being gay was dumbing down the populaiton because gay people are smarter than straight people and we need their genes.
I dismissed it as pretzel-logic trolling but noted it wasn’t the typical kind of argument one would find on a conservative site. The comments ran the gamut from rote agreement to utter confusion.
However, I disagree with you on his twitter battles. It was unquestionably a silly, petty, and unnecessary battle. However, his profile has skyrocketed because of it.
Getting kicked off twitter is the best thing that ever happened to this guy.
Even I can see that, although I am not personally his target audience nor someone who will ever read his stuff.
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It raised his profile, but he now has one less platform on which to express his (more serious) opinions. Twitter is a useful tool for political commentary.
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I’ve come across the ‘gay men are smarter’ theory many times. I know what they mean. Gay men earn considerably more than straight men, for example. I think there must be a sociological explanation for the disparity. A biological one seems infeasible.
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Nasreen: I believe it’s referred to as ‘tongue in cheek”.
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Milo is fascinating to me. Not the least because there is definitely a blur between his sarcasm and genuine intent. To me, it’s a way of breaking through the barriers of political correctness—and a very effective one at that.
He’s a wild card and a loose cannon—but a very smart one. He does goad one into actually THINKING, rather than just reacting and I would have to agree with much of what he says. His way of calling out the hypocrisy of the left (and right) is positively refreshing. I also appreciate that someone of his age and in his demographic is speaking up. The future will be theirs, after all. Milo puts forth some uncomfortable truths that cut through the bullshit barrier that the media has stupidly prepared for him (and anyone with dissenting views). I find him completely fearless in that regard. Whatever shock tactics or clownish behavior he uses to be heard clearly works. He’s playing the media like a fiddle. I follow his Facebook page and read his Breitbart articles regularly. That Breitbart even publishes him is no small miracle. The Twitter incident is unfortunate but again draws attention to Twitter’s duplicity and double standards. He’s also taken the battle to his enemies rather than kow-towing and he’s made the whole thing work for him. Who knows? Twitter may just take him back. At least I hope so.
Milo is not a politician but a member of modern society that islam wants so badly to to destroy. He owes no one any political favors. His voice is the voice of regular people who are fed up with the lies, even if his is coming from an unconventional place. As a 60 year old gay man myself, the silence from my peers is maddening, especially in the wake of the Orlando atrocity. I don’t think anyone on the left has used the word jihad to explain or understand it. Kudos, Milo for calling it what it is and it is nothing short of heroic for doing so.
Wether “gay men are smarter” is moot. It’s another button that he’s pushing to make people think. He relishes his role as a fly in the ointment and I only hope that he survives the onslaught the pro islamist left is preparing for him. It’s hard to play with fire and not get burned but he will not give into intimidation. For me, that speaks volumes about his toughness and brevity in the face of unrelenting attacks. I would hate to see him silenced.
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“That Breitbart even publishes him is no small miracle” – Islam is certainly changing attitudes on the right, especially in Britain and America. This is the only positive effect of Jihad. It brings the world together.
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He needs to reign in the eccentricity a little IMO. He’s running the risk of delegitimising his views.
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I agree with your assesment of Milo, both in the positive and the negative. As a Gay Conservative(ish) myself, at times I read his material and feel as though it’s just too much – and at times I feel he’s actually doing damage to forming a ‘big tent’ Conservativism that can hold both the Liberatarian and Social Conservative sides of the movement with his making people uncomfortable.
He proclaims himself a ‘troll’ and I wonder sometimes if his OTT antics aren’t meant to push the buttons of the more extreme and intolerant parts of the alt-right. His overly gay articles on Breitbart tend to bring them all out of the woodwork into the comment sections, at which point they are generally torn to pieces by the more mainstream Breitbart readers. Baiting the trap with his eccentricity to purge the extreme edges? Not sure.
The Trump ‘Daddy’ thing is just a little creepy, and I’m more used to such things than his non-Gay readers, still, little too much.
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Agreed. He needs to tone it down. He’s otherwise very incisive and valuable. His debating style is excellent.
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His ability to wake up Gay people to the Islamist threat is particularly valuable. There’s a lot of leftism in social minority communities. People don’t always seem willing to recognise a threat.
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