# Milo Yiannopoulos Milo Yiannopoulos is a British commentator and former Breitbart technology editor who became a lightning rod in mid-2010s internet culture wars after championing Gamergate in September 2014 with an article attacking developer Zoe Quinn[4]. His January 2016 Twitter verification removal and July 2016 permanent ban over the Leslie Jones pile-on turned his face into a mass profile-picture protest symbol behind the #JeSuisMilo and #FreeMilo hashtags[3]. ## Origin Yiannopoulos launched his @Nero Twitter handle in May 2007 and co-founded the online tabloid The Kernel in November 2011 with David Rosenberg, David Haywood Smith, Stephen Pritchard and Adrian McShane; the magazine was later sold to The Daily Dot in 2014[10]. His breakout as an internet figure came on September 1, 2014, when Breitbart published his article 'Lying, Greedy, Promiscuous Feminist Bullies Are Tearing the Video Game Industry Apart,' attacking developer Zoe Quinn and framing Gamergate as a rebellion against political policing of games coverage[4]. He followed up that month with a series of pieces exposing GameJournoPros, a private Google Groups mailing list he described as roughly 150 gaming journalists coordinating story angles across outlets like Polygon, Ars Technica and Kotaku[5]. A week later Breitbart published the full membership list, extending the story to freelancers writing for the Associated Press, CNBC and USA Today[6]. Those articles built the audience that carried him through 2015 as a regular Sky News guest defending biochemist Tim Hunt and debating fat acceptance[10]. In October 2015 the University of Manchester Students' Union barred him from a free-speech debate over 'comments lambasting rape survivors and trans people,' adding to the deplatforming storyline he ran with for the next two years[10]. - **Platform:** Breitbart (source) / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2014 ## Overview Yiannopoulos operated online as a self-described 'supervillain,' mixing British tabloid prose, staged provocations and a bleached-blonde look that made him instantly recognizable in screenshots and reaction shots[1]. The meme dimension of his fame is less a single image or catchphrase than a set of running visual and hashtag rituals, most obviously the January 2016 protest where thousands of Twitter users swapped in his headshot as their avatar to make any suspension impossible to enforce cleanly[6]. Branded 'Dangerous Faggot' college tour posters, the Breitbart 'you deserve to be harassed' screenshot, and photos from the burning UC Berkeley protest all became stock illustrations for the wider argument over deplatforming that shaped 2016 and 2017[3]. His online voice leaned hard into stunt journalism: leaking the membership of a private games-journalism mailing list, staging on-camera Sky News debates about fat acceptance and Tim Hunt, and picking fights with celebrities on Twitter until the platform pushed back[5]. That tabloid rhythm is what put him in meme territory rather than just op-ed territory. Every escalation produced its own screenshotable moment, from the verification-removed email he tweeted himself[7] to a Twitter executive publicly guessing he was punished over a 'you deserve to be harassed' line[1]. ## How It Spread The first mass Milo Yiannopoulos meme moment landed on January 8, 2016, when he tweeted a screenshot of a Twitter email stripping his blue check for unspecified 'recent violations of the Twitter Rules'[7]. Fans changed their display names and avatars to his headshot and pushed #JeSuisMilo, a riff on the Charlie Hebdo 'Je Suis Charlie' slogan, to the number one U.S. trend and number three globally within hours[2]. Twitter's Head of Commerce Nathan Hubbard publicly speculated the badge pull was over Yiannopoulos telling another user 'you deserve to be harassed,' a line Yiannopoulos said was a joke to a friend[1]. The next escalation came on July 19, 2016, when Twitter permanently suspended his account a day after he helped whip up a racist and sexist tweet campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones[3]. The company told BuzzFeed News the ban was for 'inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others' rather than the content of the tweets. Supporters answered with #FreeMilo, which trended nationwide and was picked up the next day by The New York Times and others[3]. Momentum peaked and then collapsed in early 2017. Protesters set fires and tore down barricades to shut down a scheduled Berkeley talk in February[10]. On February 19, the @ReaganBattalion Twitter feed surfaced a Drunken Peasants podcast clip in which Yiannopoulos seemed to defend sexual relationships between adult men and teenage boys[8]. Within 48 hours, CPAC pulled his speaking slot, Simon & Schuster canceled the autobiography Dangerous that had briefly topped Amazon after its December 2016 announcement, and he resigned from Breitbart on February 21[10]. An October 2017 BuzzFeed News investigation later published leaked emails showing him consulting Andrew Auernheimer, Curtis Yarvin and American Renaissance's Devin Saucier while shaping a Breitbart 'guide to the alt-right,' along with footage of him singing 'America the Beautiful' as Richard Spencer and others made Nazi salutes in the audience[10]. ## How to Use The main participatory template around Milo Yiannopoulos was the January 2016 avatar swap: Twitter users changed their profile picture to his bleached-blonde headshot and their display name to some variant of 'Milo' so any suspension would be functionally useless without banning thousands of accounts[6]. The hashtag half of the pattern reappeared after the July 2016 permanent ban as #FreeMilo, again used both by sincere supporters and by trolls[3]. Beyond his own accounts, the visual grammar of that 'unverified' email screenshot is still recycled as a template whenever a right-leaning user gets a Twitter or X moderation notice[7]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Milo Yiannopoulos? A British commentator and former Breitbart technology editor best known online for Gamergate coverage and his 2016 Twitter unverification and permanent ban[3]. ### Where did Milo Yiannopoulos come from? He launched his @Nero Twitter handle in May 2007 and broke through as an internet figure with a September 1, 2014 Breitbart article attacking developer Zoe Quinn[4]. ### What does Milo Yiannopoulos mean as a meme? His name and headshot became online shorthand for social-media deplatforming and free-speech fights after the January 2016 verification pull and the July 2016 ban[6]. ### How do you use the Milo Yiannopoulos meme? Use was mainly the January 2016 avatar swap protest and the #JeSuisMilo and #FreeMilo hashtags aimed at Twitter over his account status[2]. ### Is Milo Yiannopoulos still popular? His peak online reach was 2015 to 2017; that reach collapsed after the February 2017 podcast clip, the Dangerous book cancellation and his Breitbart resignation[10]. ### Why was Milo Yiannopoulos banned from Twitter? He was permanently suspended on July 19, 2016 for helping lead a racist and sexist harassment campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones[3]. ### What is #JeSuisMilo? A January 2016 hashtag riffing on 'Je Suis Charlie' that trended #1 in the United States after Yiannopoulos lost his Twitter verification badge[6]. ### What happened at UC Berkeley in 2017? In early February 2017, protesters tore down metal barricades, smashed windows and set fires outside the student union to shut down his scheduled talk[10]. ### What was the Dangerous book? An autobiographical book announced December 29, 2016 with a $250,000 Simon & Schuster advance; the publisher canceled it on February 20, 2017 after the Drunken Peasants clip surfaced[10]. ### What did the October 2017 BuzzFeed emails show? Leaked correspondence showing Yiannopoulos consulted alt-right and white-nationalist figures like Andrew Auernheimer and Curtis Yarvin while a Breitbart 'guide to the alt-right' was being written[10]. ### What was GameJournoPros? A private Google Groups mailing list of roughly 150 gaming journalists that Yiannopoulos exposed in Breitbart articles across September 2014[5]. ### Who coined #JeSuisMilo? The hashtag was spread by Yiannopoulos's Twitter followers within hours of his January 8, 2016 verification badge removal; no single originator is documented[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/twitter-unverifies-milo-yiannopoulos-leading-to-speech-polic]() 2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20170317150450/https://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/09/twitter-unverifies-outspoken-conservative-journalist-its-unlikely-it-ever-expected-this-response-in-return/]() 3. [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/twitter-just-permanently-suspended-conservative-writer-milo]() 4. [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2014/09/01/lying-greedy-promiscuous-feminist-bullies-are-tearing-the-video-game-industry-apart/]() 5. [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2014/09/17/exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite/]() 6. [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2014/09/21/gamejournopros-we-reveal-every-journalist-on-the-list/]() 7. [https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/09/twitter-declares-war-on-conservative-media-unverifies-breitbart-tech-editor/]() 8. [https://x.com/i/status/833405993006616576]() 9. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCDV9yp754o]() 10. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/milo-yiannopoulos]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/milo-yiannopoulos Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library