For Whom the Belle Trolls

[Air horns play over classical music as "Contrapoints" text in pink is displayed]\

[Contrapoints shows bottle of King Cobra to the camera]

[*Not a paid endorsement. Do not drink.]

Contrapoints: [Cracks open the bottle and takes a whiff] Mmm, snakey! [Takes a long swig] Ah! So in a way, I regarded it as beneath my dignity to make a video about Milo Yiannopoulos. But something being beneath my dignity has never been enough to stop me before, and it certainly isn't going to stop me now. I say beneath my dignity because I don't really think that Milo is a serious person. Whereas, I'm very serious. [Loudly] I'm serious! I'm serious! [Takes another swig from the bottle] The news calls Milo a provocateur, but I'm starting to think that "provocateur" is just a pretentious word for asshole.

Contrapoints (VO): What Milo really is, is a preening narcissistic no-face whose main infatuation is with his own minor celebrity.

Contrapoints: He's an opportunist who gained fame by championing GamerGate, though he has clearly nothing but disdain for gamers, who he consistently characterizes as beta male manbabies. He's now taking after his friend Ann Coulter, in making a career out of saying false and immoral things to get negative attention from easily offended liberals, something that any 12-year-old with a Twitter account could do. His articles and speeches blend generic right-wing babble with exaggerated attacks on feminists, black lives matter, and transgender and fat people. All of this is plastered over a thin layer of homosexual glamour, which in this case, means calling feminists "darling" and dressing like he just made his first $1000 12 minutes ago.

[Air horns blare and a crowd screams]

Contrapoints: When he was banned last week on Twitter for his borderline racist participation in an extremely racist mob attack on Leslie Jones, his poor duped fans tweeted out #FreeMilo and complained about Orwellian censorship, while Milo himself bragged about the long-anticipated ban which he celebrated as the latest victory in his war against people not paying attention to him.

Milo (onstage): I just got banned from Twitter! [laughs]

Contrapoints: [burps] All this is pretty typical of the tedious reality-TV-type circus that American politics has become. But what I find interesting is that a lot of people seem to be really attracted to Milo, even people who are somewhat sympathetic to social justice, and I'd like to talk about why that is. I've spoken to some Milo fans and they all tell me they like him because he's funny and fabulous and a contrarian. But is he? His humor mostly seems to consist in the most primitive sort of insults and put-downs. This is what men drink, I do man stuff [Contrapoints points to bottle]! Now there is a venerable tradition of bitchy gay humor.

Old man: ...it was cruel, capricious, dark...

Contrapoints: But Milo really doesn't belong to that tradition. Great gay humorists like Crisp or David Sedaris use self-depreciation to balance out the bitchiness, and they have a sense of the tragic. It's the human condition or the homosexual condition that's often the butt of jokes. It's a little like Jewish humor in that way, and you know, Milo is also Jewish, I mean what the hell is going on here. A gay jew! You'd think he'd be guaranteed to be funny. But Milo has been seduced by the brutal Hitlerian-charm of Donald Trump, and in consequence, his humor is essentially self-aggrandizement at other people's expense.

Milo: I am perfectly happy to be your martyr in this. [laughs along with the crowd]

Contrapoints: [burps louder] But despite all that, there is one talking point that Milo has, that is very interesting to me, and I think it might help explain why people are so attracted to him. Again and again, Milo suggests that what's great about him and the Republican party, that he delusionally imagines could be crafted in his image, is that he's fun and fabulous and glamorous. His one criticism of the left that I think in genuine is his complaint that they're joyless and humorless, that they resent glamour and excess. And, you know, as much as I hate to admit it, he actually has a bit of a point.