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Milo Yiannopoulos

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Milo Yiannopoulos
Milo Yiannopoulos at a flashmob event in 2009
Born (1975-10-18) 18 October 1975 (age 49)
NationalityBritish
OccupationJournalist

Milo Yiannopoulos (Template:Lang-el, born 18 October 1982), is a British journalist and entrepreneur. He founded the online tabloid magazine The Kernel, which he sold to Daily Dot Media in January 2014. He is a weekly columnist for Breitbart.com.

Education

Yiannopoulos was offered a place at Cambridge but it was rescinded after his A-Level results and he attended the University of Manchester. He then attended Wolfson College, Cambridge in English literature for two years before dropping out. He once got into an online squabble with actor Stephen Fry while a student at Cambridge. He told Forbes, "I try to tell myself I'm in good company, but ultimately it doesn't say great things about you unless you go on to terrific success in your own right."

Career

Yiannopoulos has appeared on a number of media outlets discussing various topics. He appeared on Sky News discussing social media, and on BBC Breakfast discussing Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom. As a gay Roman Catholic, Yiannopoulos has debated gay marriage on Newsnight, and on Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live with Boy George. He later debated singer Will Young on Newsnight on the use of the word "gay" in the playground and Tinchy Stryder on the same programme in May 2014, about copyright infringement and music piracy. In March 2015 he appeared on The Big Questions, debating on topics relating to feminism and discrimination against men in the United Kingdom.

Yiannopoulos received criticism in 2009 for tweeting that he hoped the police "beat the shit out of those wankers" at the G20 protests, and then deleting the tweet after Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor, was killed. He later apologized and pointed out that he could not have known in advance about the death of Ian Tomlinson and that his tweet was sent in anger about another person who was protesting.

He appeared at the TechCrunch Europe GeeknRolla conference in 2009, arguing that males perform better in technology jobs, and that artificially engineering the workplace to include more women could lead to positive discrimination, for which he was criticized. In 2010 he helped to organize the second Young Rewired State event.

Yiannopoulos has also written under the name Milo Wagner.

The Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100

Yiannopoulos organised a method of ranking the most promising technology start-ups in Europe, The Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100, in 2011. It operated through an events company, called Wrong Agency, that Yiannopoulos had started with David Rosenberg, a friend from Cambridge University. The company was dissolved shortly after the ceremony that awarded the top start-up. Mike Butcher of TechCrunch said the main prize had been given to music streaming service Spotify, even though his casting vote had gone to the controversial payday loan company Wonga, because the Telegraph considered Wonga's reputation objectionable. Butcher wrote that Yiannopoulos "was put in an incredibly invidious position the legitimacy of the methodology behind the judging process ... was sat on, unceremoniously. I don’t think he should take the blame for this at all. He could only do what he could do under the circumstances given overt pressure from his backer. I reached out to him about all this but he’s declined to comment—perhaps understandably." The Start-Up 100 did not return in 2012.

The Kernel

Together with university friends David Rosenberg and David Haywood Smith, journalist Stephen Pritchard and former Telegraph employee Adrian McShane, Yiannopoulos launched The Kernel in November 2011 to "fix European technology journalism." The Kernel was at that time owned by Sentinel Media. In 2012, the online magazine became embroiled in a legal dispute with one of its contributors after he said it failed to pay money owed to him. The Kernel closed in March 2013, with thousands of pounds owed to former contributor Jason Hesse when he won a summary judgement from an employment tribunal against parent company Sentinel Media. Margot Huysman, whom Yiannopoulos had appointed associate editor and was one of people seeking payment, said that many working for the site had been "screwed over" personally and financially. Yiannopoulos also threatened, via email, to release embarrassing details and photographs of a Kernel contributor who sought payment for their work for the site and he also accused the contributor of being behind the "majority of damage to The Kernel". The unnamed contributor told the Guardian that the emails had been referred to the police. German venture capital vehicle BERLIN42 acquired The Kernel's assets in early 2013. The website displayed plans for a relaunch in August 2013 with fresh investment and Yiannopoulos reinstated as editor-in-chief. BERLIN42 founding partner Aydogan Ali Schosswald would join its newly formed publishing company, Kernel Media, as chief executive. Yiannopoulos personally paid six former contributors money that the defunct company was unable to pay.

The Independent on Sunday reported that the relaunched publication, based between London and Berlin, would focus on "modern warfare, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, pornography and space travel" from August, but newsletter The Nutshell would not return. In 2014, The Kernel was acquired by The Daily Dot's parent company Daily Dot Media. Yiannopoulos stepped down as Editor-in-Chief but remained an advisor to the company.

Gamergate

Yiannopoulos was responsible for early news coverage of the Gamergate controversy, criticizing what he saw as the politicization of video game culture by "an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers." In December 2014, he announced he was working on a book about Gamergate.

As part of his coverage of Gamergate, he published correspondence from GameJournoPros, an email list where members of the video game press discussed industry matters. Kyle Orland, the creator of the list, responded to the leak on Ars Technica, admitting that he had written a message saying several things that he "soon came to regret", but also defending the list as "a place for business competitors ... to discuss issues of common professional interest". Carter Dotson of pocketgamer.biz acknowledged that the list was indicative of the echo chamber that the industry's press had become.

Erik Kain of Forbes criticized Yiannopoulos' involvement in the controversy, arguing that Yiannopoulos' involvement had more to do with offending his political opponents and advancing his career than from sympathy for gamers. Ryan Cooper of The Week argued that Yiannopoulos "had little but sneering contempt for gamers" beforehand, highlighting Yiannopoulos' comments describing gamers as 'pungent beta male bollock-scratchers and twelve-year-olds' and 'a bit sad'.

During the controversy, Yiannopoulos claimed to have received a syringe filled with an unknown substance through the post, as well as a dead animal. In May 2015, a meetup in Washington D.C. for supporters arranged by Yiannopolis and Christina Hoff Sommers was targeted by a bomb threat made over Twitter, according to the local police responding to information supplied by the FBI.

Media coverage

Yiannopoulos was twice featured in Wired UK's yearly top 100 most influential people in Britain's digital economy: At 84 in 2011 and at 98 in 2012. He was called the "pit bull of tech media" by The Observer.

Other activities

Yiannopoulos hosted the Young Rewired State competition in 2010, an initiative to showcase the technological talents of 15–18-year-olds, and organised The London Nude Tech Calendar, a calendar featuring members of the London technology scene to raise money for Take Heart India. He also organised the moonwalk flash mob tribute to Michael Jackson in London's Liverpool Street station shortly after Jackson's death in 2009. He explained that the idea of a flashmob as a tribute to Jackson was originally a humorous suggestion on Twitter, but then decided to make it happen, inviting people via social networking websites.

In 2007, he self-published two collections of poetry.

He is a self-professed "proper nut-job groupie" fan of pop singer Mariah Carey. In 2014, he wrote a column for Business Insider explaining why he flew to Berlin to purchase Carey's album, Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse five days before it was available in the UK and US.

References

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  2. I dropped out of Manchester and Cambridge but it’s honestly fine
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  4. ^ Arthur, Charles (12 September 2012). "The Kernel sued by former contributors for non-payment". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  5. "When will he learn? Stephen Fry makes another Twitter blunder with a barbed attack on a student". 16 November 2010. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
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  7. BBC Breakfast, 13 August 2010, BBC Television, distributed by the BBC.
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  11. "Twitter mishaps and netiquette for journalists". journalism.co.uk. 30 November 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  12. Yiannopoulos, Milo (22 April 2009). "Men perform better in many technology jobs. Must we apologise for that?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 17 February 2013.
  13. "Just a Girl – Why we put on the "Balancing Tech Culture" debate @GeeknRolla". TechCrunch Europe. 23 April 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
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  15. "Wonga won the Startup 100 awards, not Spotify". TechCrunch Europe. 17 May 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
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  17. Charles Arthur. "The Kernel to close as debts stay unpaid". the Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
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  20. Williams-Grut, Oscar (2 June 2013). "The Kernel's back to make new enemies". The Independent.
  21. "The Kernel acquired by The Daily Dot Media; founder moves on". Tech.eu. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  22. Yiannopoulos, Milo (1 September 2014). "Feminist bullies tearing the video game industry apart". breitbart.com. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  23. Griggs, Brandon (16 October 2014). "Behind the furor over #Gamergate". CNN. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  24. "GamerGate – what is it, and why are gamers so angry?". Metro. 15 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  25. Yiannopoulos, Milo (15 December 2014). "I'm Writing a Book about #GamerGate". Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  26. Johnson, Eric (10 October 2014). "Understanding the Jargon of Gamergate". Recode. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  27. Lirios, Dino (19 September 2014). "Scandal in the Gaming Community: Elite Gaming Journalists Collude to Censor Stories". ChinaTopix. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
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  29. Dotson, Carter (26 September 2014). "Escaping the echo chamber: GamerGaters and journalists have more in common than they think". Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  30. Kain, Erik. (4 September 2014). "GamerGate: A Closer Look At The Controversy Sweeping Video Games", Forbes. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  31. Cooper, Ryan (7 October 2014). "Intel's awful capitulation to #gamergate's sexist thugs". The Week. Retrieved 9 October 2014.
  32. Yiannopoulos, Milo. "12-year-old console gamers are being 'raped' by dorky weirdos on grand theft auto". Breitbart. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  33. Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Twitter post". Twitter. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  34. Bokhari, Allum (25 September 2014). "#GamerGate – An Issue With Two Sides". Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  35. Totilo, Stephen (12 October 2014). "Another Woman In Gaming Flees Home Following Death Threats". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  36. Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Twitter post". Twitter. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  37. Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Twitter post". Twitter. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  38. Good, Owen S. (3 May 2015). "Bomb threat clears out GamerGate gathering in Washington D.C." Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
  39. "Wired 100 2011".
  40. "Wired 100 2012".
  41. Dowell, Ben (8 July 2012). "Milo Yiannopoulos – meet the 'pit bull' of tech media". The Observer. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  42. "Techno teens design public websites". MSN. 25 August 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  43. Arthur, Charles (18 November 2009). "London Nude Tech calendar: unclothed geeks (and ladygeeks) in a good cause". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  44. ^ "Moonwalking Jackson Fans Mob London Station". Sky News. 27 June 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  45. "British Library National Bibliography".
  46. "I Had To Buy A$1,200 Plane Ticket To Get Mariah Carey's New Album, And It's All The Record Label's Fault". Business Insider. 23 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
  47. "Some Guy Spent $1,200 on Mariah Carey's New Album". Gawker. 23 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2012.

External links

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