If you haven’t already read Laurie Penny’s brilliant and unnerving account of her surreal evening as Milo Yiannopoulos’ guest at the Gays for Trump shindig he held in Cleveland earlier this week, stop whatever you’re doing and read it now. Then come back and discuss.
If you need more persuasion: It’s a sharp and scary analysis of “how trolls took the wheel of the clown car of modern politics,” as Penny puts it, and it’s full of weird details about the event and Penny’s strange non-relationship with Milo, whom she describes as “a charming devil and one of the worst people I know” and someone she simply can’t convince she’s not actually friends with.
Perhaps the oddest part of Penny’s piece, though, is her description of her encounter with a fellow we all know too well: Roosh Valizadeh, whom she describes all too accurately as a “headline-hunting nano-celebrity in the world of ritualised internet misogyny.”
“He asks me what I’m doing here,” Penny writes. “I ask him the same question.”
It’s a good question, given that Roosh is a raging homophobe who bans gays from commenting on his sites.
The interaction that follows is the most surreal episode in a deeply surreal evening. Roosh is tall and well-built and actually rather good-looking for, you know, a monster. I have opportunity to observe this because he puts himself right up in my personal space, blocking my view of the room with his T-shirt, and proceeds, messily and at length, to tell me what my problem is.
Number one: my haircut, and he’s telling me this as a man, makes my face look round. This is absolutely true. Number two: I seek to destroy the nuclear family, and disturb traditional relationships between men and women. This is also true, although I remind him that the nuclear family as it is currently conceived is actually a fairly recent social format. He insists that it’s thousands of years old, and asks me if I truly believe that it’s right for gay men to be able to adopt children. I tell him that I do. He appears as flummoxed by this as I do by his presence at what is supposed to be a party to celebrate Gay republicans. He’s here for the same reason I am: Milo invited him.
So, yeah.
For what it’s worth, I think Penny overstates Milo’s “weaponised insincerity.” He’s certainly a cynical enough opportunist, who jumped aboard GamerGate and then on the alt-right car of the Trump Train not because he gave a shit about any of the alleged issues involved but in order to promote himself. But he’s hardly the boy with the “fewest f*cks to give.” He actually gives a lot of f*cks, at least about himself. Like most narcissists, he’s acutely sensitive to slights and lashes out at anyone who pierces his vanity — much like his adopted “daddy” Trump.
But if you want to know how we got to this weird place we’re in now, Penny’s piece offers some invaluable insights.
That entire article was one disturbing ride. He puts on a bit of an act she he’s convinced everyone else must be too but at the same time he’s more than willing to cash in while he pushes just terrible, horrible things. And the fact that he’s GIDDY over his twitter ban…
It’s a great article just in terms of content but what is particularly wonderful is her exquisite turn of phrase.
I think the most revealing line of the article was near the beginning, where the conservative journalist apologized for attacking her earlier, and said, ‘I thought thats how you did twitter’.
How did we get to that point?
Also, her comment about America being destroyed by it’s own narrative is well said.
I found it to be a bit of a relief, articulating the trick that trolls use. Is there such a thing as energetic apathy? I think this article is so important for people to understand what this social sickness is. Though I think there is one thing trolls care about that does silence them- they can’t stand to really examine themselves.
I agree it’s a disturbing ride.
I only got as far as her exchange with Roosh but her reflections on the whole situation are expertly on point.
Except for the casual ableism, I am a fan of hers now.
She’s so courageous to walk into the beast’s jaws. Parts of the story feel like I’m reading my nightmares come true, and she seems aware of this effect.
I also agree with Alan, exquisite turn of phrase as well as the invaluable insights promised by David.
I’ll finish reading it later when I’m not, you know, at work.
ETA: “And we have fallen through the looking glass in which they see themselves reflected as small gods.”
On point.
This article is riveting. It reads like a treatment for a latter-day Twilight Zone episode, but it’s real. *wanders off in search of a happy place*
I haven’t been able to re-read it since my initial read. I’ve recommended it to others, though.
That was…odd. She does have a delightful turn of phrase though.
All I hear is “I want people to perform the play that I was sold, which is a life where everybody behaves a certain way towards me, serves me and creates a buffer around me so I do not have to deal with the people I wrong. I want the people around me to perform so as to give everybody else an impression that my life is ideal. If this fails, I will marry another one.”
Which is exactly the life that Donald Trump is living. Except Donald Trump had his fathers millions to accomplish this over 40 years. I grew up with a loe-rent version of Donald Trump. Imagine… A Donald Trump with a fake Rolex, no stable income who is supported by his girlfriend… Yep, you get a not yet successful version of Roosh V.
In my Alter Ego as a supervillain I do this all the time. I take multiple gorgeous men on leashes to sex parties organized by my girlfriends so they will say “I hang out with lovely guys”. It is a great way to make them giggle and get their attention. It’s the same thing rich men do in their circle of friends. But there is one thing I am trying to accomplish. It is to be seen, at all times, with lovely guys who are laughing and happy in a sincere joyful way. And I mostly work with men so I do not have to go out of my way to run into guys. It’s supposed to be a contrast to what narcissistic assholes do with controlled arm candy and daddy’s money. Ideally, a sincere representation of loving interpersonal relationships high on giggle and low in conflicts.
Trump, Milo and Roosh seem like desperate people struck with insincerity cancer and stuck in a lie desperately spinning plates 🙂
I was about to post this in the comments of the last post even though I’m only just past the Roosh part.
I finished reading it anyway and Hunab Ku help me, some parts seem to describe the situation here in Argentina.
Putting aside the *enormous* differences of each context, here’s what almost made me cry:
And yes, I do believe this is happening around me right now, it’s even feeding from the frenzy in imperialist countries, who now have an allied government in office.
But they got there in the first place through the same strategies and techniques Laurie is describing.
We do not have a gun culture like in the Us, but we *did* endure 6 (yes six) military coup d’etats followed by dictatorships.
I visited recently the building that used to be the Army’s school of mechanics and was used to kidnap, torture and murder teenagers and very young adult activists during the last dictatorship, from 1976 to 1983.
*Warning: descriptions of torture and genocide*
It’s the biggest extermination camp, much like an Argentinean Auschwitz, except the slave work was in State offices.
They put them in literal boxes about 190 x 70 ctms, with a hood on their heads and their wrists and ankles cuffed, torturing them with beatings and electricity.
Even pregnant women were kidnapped and tortured, and gave birth cuffed and hooded in rooms barely larger than the beds. Then they took the babies and gave them to military or police officers to raise them as their own, often including physical and psychological abuse.
People were murdered by sedating them and throwing them into the sea from a plane, in what today we call Death Flight.
It was literal Nazism.
Now, why does this matter politically at this moment?
Most of the military involved in this massacre remained in impunity for over 3 decades after the dictatorship ended.
Many are still free, most of the trials are very slow and depend on the insistence of human rights groups like Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.
Only in the last decade, when the first progressive government won the election and started insisting on them, the responsible for the crimes actually started going to jail.
But most of the civilians, who planned and executed the dictatorship and the economic plan that was the real goal, and who used the armed forces as a tool, have never even been judged.
They are the owners of the country. About 50 families in all Argentina control most of the land, natural resources, industrial production, banks and mass media. They fucking own us.
And now, through the use of those resources and particularly media, they got to win an election and now have bare to no opposition at all. They have the money, the cameras and the State.
In the last Independence day, military on trial and some of them convicted for crimes against humanity marched in the streets during a militar parade.
There was even an olive-green Ford Falcon with no license plate in one of the parades in the provinces: the car used to kidnap people in the 70s.
There is some serious shit going on in the world, and it’s getting scary.
I urge you all to stay tuned to what’s happening everywhere. The media are covering up massacres and crimes all over the globe, and we need to support each other.
The fights for human rights in Argentina have been model for other parts of the world, like Turkey. They *will* want to erase that from history.
I’m sad and tired and scared. But I’m not backing down one step.
Penny nails it. Evil is as evil does, I guess – as she points out, the harm they do is real.
‘It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t mean it … because the harm he does is real’.
Whilst I agree totally, if you really do not believe in something using it as if you do, as a way of becoming famous/ notorious, and garnering an income, is utterly morally bankrupt.
You are a collaborator, if not an instigator.
What a brilliant article! I’m an instant fan of Laurie Penny now. Her words expertly skewer these pompous and childish people, showing them for the hypocrites and jaded attention addicts they are.
Thanks for sharing that one Dave. Very Alice Through the Looking Glass indeed! Makes me wonder again what mirror- milk tastes like…
These are the hollow men. There’s nothing inside, except their own gaudy hate performance reflected back through their eyes by their eager followers. In some ways, I find them more scary than regular fascists.
I feel vindicated by Laurie’s excellent piece and one of her conclusions: I’ve always believed Milo doesn’t actually believe his own horseshit. It’s a vehicle for his narcissism, love of approval and money making.
It also explains why he emigrated to the US: this kind of manure finds much more fertile grounds there than it does in Ole’Blighty.
So many Americans (but far, far from all, of course) confuse the right to have an opinion with actually being right about something. Evidence-free belief systems reign supreme in parts of the US.
Every word I read about these people makes me see red, and all I can think is “okay, play the game, keep playing, because I already know what’s endgame, and endgame does not have Uncle Toms.”
In any Narrativist movement such as in the GOP and the alt right, there are Rational Actors and True Believers. Milo is the “Rational Actor” in which he uses the narrativists’ need of authoritarians to fuel his brand of narcissism. Bear in mind Narcissists have different tastes to attention. Milo is the one who requires a certain blend of hate and admiration from those who know of him.
In the end as with all fascist things, the rational actors get supplanted by the True Believers, the propoganda machine is the party, and all sorts of horrid things come about.
I find Milo, and anyone else at the receiving end of imminent and dwindling viability in the coming months and years, are going to have a very hard time doing a hard reset.
“provocateur”
Do you not think “bellend” would be a better word?
OoglyBoggles:
How do you do a hard reset, anyway? I keep hitting CTRL-ALT-RIGHT, but nothing happens!
Echos in this Salon piece (which references Laurie’s article):
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/22/his_dark_materials_after_that_diabolical_masterful_performance_donald_trump_could_easily_end_up_president/
Americans do realise this is a real election right; and not just some reality TV show?
It was bad enough over here when we got the EU referendum confused with Eurovision.
@Moggie
By hard reset, I mean a complete disengagement from this powder keg of radicalization and plain and simple fascism.
Have you ever seen a rowdy croud? Have you ever seen a rowdy crowd attack a spokesperson? Have you ever seen a crowd that is indignantly angry, that you promised them the dream of the good old days, when they had all the power and everyone else had to grovel? A crowd that is promised that all their fantasies will come to life. Imagine how angry they’d be when Trump loses. Imagine how angry the GOP will be for continuing this insanity. Imagine if you will a GOP run roughshed by the true believers and the rational actors swept up in the tides.
Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if we have multiple armed white militia attacks in sporadic forms over the coming years.
@Alan
The American Dream is a scam, and alot of people are getting angrier that that dream is turning to be a bunch of lies. Celebrity worship combined with the sinple desire of extermination of me and every other minority out there makes for a deadly combination.
My hopes lie in the newer generations who seem alot more secular, and a hell of alot more left wing than the Corporate Democrates. They’ll be the ones to take over, and frankly I can hardly wait.
@davidknewton:
It’s not an either-or, of course.
I read it yesterday, it’s a very good account. I must start reading Penny more often.
WTF y’all?
Why in the hell aren’t we seeing that shell-shock in the actual news? Why aren’t journalists breaking down on camera and asking that question on camera? Why are they asking it in private, and then in their stories pretending to be stenographers who are just there to pass along the new agenda to the public?
Why is it shocking when Anderson Cooper tells Trump he’s acting like a five-year-old? Why isn’t everyone in the press pointing that out?
TBH, that’s the most surprising turn of the story, that this journalist knows perfectly well that this country is being actively flushed down the toilet by Milo and his followers and his Daddy but she can’t or won’t say that in words to the American public.