Milo Yiannopoulos is a
British journalist and entrepreneur. Yiannopoulos founded
The Kernel, an online tabloid magazine about technology, which he sold to
Daily Dot Media in 2014. He rose to notability in late
2015 when he began to provide media coverage and commentary surrounding the
Gamergate controversy. He is the technology editor for
Breitbart.com, a conservative news and opinion website based in the
United States.
Yiannopoulos originally intended to write theatre criticism, but became interested in technology journalism whilst investigating women in computing for
The Daily Telegraph in 2009.[8] He also appeared on
Sky News discussing social media,[9] and on
BBC Breakfast discussing
Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the
United Kingdom.[10]
As a gay
Roman Catholic, Yiannopoulos has debated gay marriage on
Newsnight,[11] and on
Channel 4's
10 O'Clock Live with
Boy George.[12] 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.[13]
In an articled titled "I’m Sooo
Bored of Being
Gay", Yiannopoulos writes regarding his sexuality, "
I’ll never forget the precise moment I chose to be gay. It was the endpoint in a process of rebellion against my white middle-class parents
...Today, thanks to society’s endless mollycoddling and celebration of “alternative” lifestyles, the joy of rebellion is drying up for me. You see, I only plumped for homosexuality to irritate my parents. But now even they are fine with it. A few years ago, my mum said, perhaps cannily, “All I want is for you to be happy. That came as devastating news... Now my gayness was not only roundly applauded by wider society but even my own parents, what was the
point?" He concludes: "Since gay people have been so endlessly praised, flattered and catered to by the media and politicians,
I’ve lost interest in sleeping with men. I want to feel oppressed again! That’s why, from today, I’m going to make a go of being straight.
Wish me luck!"[14]
Yiannopoulos has written under the pseudonym
Milo Wagner.[7]
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.[7]
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 [because] 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 [the] overt pressure from his backer. I reached out to him about all this but he’s declined to comment—perhaps understandably."[15] 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."[16] The Kernel was at that time owned by
Sentinel Media.
- published: 14 May 2016
- views: 27137