From Kristen V. Brown writing at Fusion:
Perhaps the most shocking thing about Milo Yiannopoulos is that he is utterly charming.
Online, the 31-year-old conservative Breitbart columnist is the sort of frustrating troll who, for instance, might declare his birthday World Patriarchy Day, suggest Donald Trump is “blacker” than Barack Obama, or, although he is gay himself, assert that gay rights have “made us dumber.”
He was recently booted from a demonstration against sexual violence in Los Angeles after showing up with a sign that read “‘Rape culture’ and Harry Potter. Both fantasy.” A dedicated contrarian, Yiannopoulos seems to delight in making enemies.
But in real life — in spite of all this, or, perhaps, because of it — Yiannopoulos is disarmingly likeable. After all, you don’t amass 85,000 Twitter followers, become the conservative torch-bearer in a gaming industry civil war, attract a cult following among young, Internet-savvy men, and become a figurehead of the Men’s Rights movement without knowing a little something about exploiting the human psyche.
When I meet him in San Francisco, a few days after the aforementioned demonstration, he greets me as if we’re old friends.
“Hello darling, how are you!” he exclaims, offering a hug. Yiannopoulos, who lives in London, was once described as a cross between a “pitbull and Oscar Wilde.” It’s barely noon on a Monday, and he and a friend are drinking in a dark bar in the Lower Haight, already onto their second glass of rosé. He had ordered me a glass. Wearing his signature aviators indoors, leisure shorts, white plastic flip-flops and a t-shirt reading #REPUBLICAN in gold foil lettering, Yiannopoulos looks slightly hung over.
Read the rest of the profile at Fusion…
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