Teh One Who Knocks
09-24-2016, 12:45 PM
By Tom Teodorczuk - Heat Street
http://i.imgur.com/Wp0xjHQl.jpg
Milo Yiannopoulos has just resumed his ‘Dangerous Faggot’ tour and is therefore on the lookout for ways to make himself interesting. Thank goodness then for his critics, who do a great job of doing this for him.
Out magazine just published a lengthy interview with the alt-right provocateur and Breitbart columnist, but many prominent gay figures in the media are objecting to the publication of the profile about the openly homosexual Milo on the grounds that his views, personality — and perhaps even his existence — cause offense.
Out‘s profile was entitled “Send in the Clown: Internet Supervillain Milo Doesn’t Care That You Hate Him.” In the piece, Milo posed in drag, draped in an American flag and in a clown costume. It’s a reasonably entertaining look at how post-Twitter overthrow, Milo is seeking to re-invent himself as the Master of Meanness.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="7" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:62.4866595518% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAA pWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY 9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wO HiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GP T6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90G Sy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAA AElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BKogrgNAEXG/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Clownin around my guy ( photo by @jill.greenberg for @outmagazine )</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A photo posted by MILO (@milo.yiannopoulos) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2016-09-21T21:25:22+00:00">Sep 21, 2016 at 2:25pm PDT</time></p></div></blockquote>
<script async defer src="//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script>
Out did publish a Trigger Warning in front of a piece in the form of an Editor’s Note:
It should not need saying that the views expressed by the subject of this piece in no way represent the opinions of this magazine, but in this era of social media tribalism, the mere act of covering a contentious person can be misinterpreted as an endorsement.
If LGBTQ media takes its responsibilities seriously we can’t shy away from covering queer people who are at the center of this highly polarized election year, and we ask you to assess Milos Yiannopoulos, the focus of this profile, on his own words without mistaking them for ours.
This wasn’t enough for some readers. Prominent members of the LGBT media community have written a letter stating: “The Out Magazine profile of Milo Yiannopoulos is a serious problem. It’s not because Yiannopoulos was mentioned, nor even because he was profiled. It’s because the profile negligently perpetuates harm against the LGBT community. We expect more from our colleagues.”
They added:
His attacks against women, people of color, Muslims, transgender people, and basically anybody who doesn’t like him are as malicious as they come, and he catalyzes his many ‘alt-right’ followers to turn on any target he deems worthy of abuse.
This puff piece — complete with a cutesy clown photoshoot — makes light of Yiannopoulos’s trolling while simultaneously providing him a pedestal to further extend his brand of hatred. Indeed, he does so in the profile itself, openly slurring the transgender community, which Out published without any apparent concern.
The ‘slur’ they refer to involved Milo saying, “On the one hand, you have the trans lobby that’s all about control and oppression and misery and victimhood and grievance culture. And then drag queens, which is about taking the same kind of pain and expressing it through gender-defying comedy and transgression and subversion. I’m very much in the second camp.”
The backlash continued on Twitter:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">No publication, but ESPECIALLY not a gay one, should be glamorizing Milo like this. Just shockingly bad judgment. <a href="https://t.co/Vd75pnV17s">pic.twitter.com/Vd75pnV17s</a></p>— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) <a href="https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/778644481335844864">September 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'm sorry, but black people are dying in the streets, and Out gave Milo a platform.</p>— Brandon Taylor (@brandonrambles) <a href="https://twitter.com/brandonrambles/status/778642118872924160">September 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Former Out Staffer Noah Michelson — now Editorial Director of The Huffington Post’s Voices Department — summed up the outrage, writing in a Facebook post:
I am absolutely floored that out magazine has decided to dedicate thousands of words to one of the most dangerous and disgusting people on the planet: milo yiannopoulos(and i refuse to link to it here. if you need to read this trash, google it…i worked at out for four years and i love the people there — and i usually refrain from publicly speaking about other media outlets — but this is just fucked. up.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Out piece is that Donald Trump’s campaign supremo Steve Bannon is interviewed and says he couldn’t convince Milo to move back to London and not stay in the States.
Which begs the question: If Bannon couldn’t persuade Milo to move back home, can he persuade enough people to vote for Donald Trump?
http://i.imgur.com/Wp0xjHQl.jpg
Milo Yiannopoulos has just resumed his ‘Dangerous Faggot’ tour and is therefore on the lookout for ways to make himself interesting. Thank goodness then for his critics, who do a great job of doing this for him.
Out magazine just published a lengthy interview with the alt-right provocateur and Breitbart columnist, but many prominent gay figures in the media are objecting to the publication of the profile about the openly homosexual Milo on the grounds that his views, personality — and perhaps even his existence — cause offense.
Out‘s profile was entitled “Send in the Clown: Internet Supervillain Milo Doesn’t Care That You Hate Him.” In the piece, Milo posed in drag, draped in an American flag and in a clown costume. It’s a reasonably entertaining look at how post-Twitter overthrow, Milo is seeking to re-invent himself as the Master of Meanness.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="7" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:62.4866595518% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAA pWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY 9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wO HiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GP T6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90G Sy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAA AElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BKogrgNAEXG/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Clownin around my guy ( photo by @jill.greenberg for @outmagazine )</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A photo posted by MILO (@milo.yiannopoulos) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2016-09-21T21:25:22+00:00">Sep 21, 2016 at 2:25pm PDT</time></p></div></blockquote>
<script async defer src="//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script>
Out did publish a Trigger Warning in front of a piece in the form of an Editor’s Note:
It should not need saying that the views expressed by the subject of this piece in no way represent the opinions of this magazine, but in this era of social media tribalism, the mere act of covering a contentious person can be misinterpreted as an endorsement.
If LGBTQ media takes its responsibilities seriously we can’t shy away from covering queer people who are at the center of this highly polarized election year, and we ask you to assess Milos Yiannopoulos, the focus of this profile, on his own words without mistaking them for ours.
This wasn’t enough for some readers. Prominent members of the LGBT media community have written a letter stating: “The Out Magazine profile of Milo Yiannopoulos is a serious problem. It’s not because Yiannopoulos was mentioned, nor even because he was profiled. It’s because the profile negligently perpetuates harm against the LGBT community. We expect more from our colleagues.”
They added:
His attacks against women, people of color, Muslims, transgender people, and basically anybody who doesn’t like him are as malicious as they come, and he catalyzes his many ‘alt-right’ followers to turn on any target he deems worthy of abuse.
This puff piece — complete with a cutesy clown photoshoot — makes light of Yiannopoulos’s trolling while simultaneously providing him a pedestal to further extend his brand of hatred. Indeed, he does so in the profile itself, openly slurring the transgender community, which Out published without any apparent concern.
The ‘slur’ they refer to involved Milo saying, “On the one hand, you have the trans lobby that’s all about control and oppression and misery and victimhood and grievance culture. And then drag queens, which is about taking the same kind of pain and expressing it through gender-defying comedy and transgression and subversion. I’m very much in the second camp.”
The backlash continued on Twitter:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">No publication, but ESPECIALLY not a gay one, should be glamorizing Milo like this. Just shockingly bad judgment. <a href="https://t.co/Vd75pnV17s">pic.twitter.com/Vd75pnV17s</a></p>— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) <a href="https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/778644481335844864">September 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'm sorry, but black people are dying in the streets, and Out gave Milo a platform.</p>— Brandon Taylor (@brandonrambles) <a href="https://twitter.com/brandonrambles/status/778642118872924160">September 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Former Out Staffer Noah Michelson — now Editorial Director of The Huffington Post’s Voices Department — summed up the outrage, writing in a Facebook post:
I am absolutely floored that out magazine has decided to dedicate thousands of words to one of the most dangerous and disgusting people on the planet: milo yiannopoulos(and i refuse to link to it here. if you need to read this trash, google it…i worked at out for four years and i love the people there — and i usually refrain from publicly speaking about other media outlets — but this is just fucked. up.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Out piece is that Donald Trump’s campaign supremo Steve Bannon is interviewed and says he couldn’t convince Milo to move back to London and not stay in the States.
Which begs the question: If Bannon couldn’t persuade Milo to move back home, can he persuade enough people to vote for Donald Trump?