Milo Yiannopoulos’ Editor Didn’t Hold Back

In 2017, the controversial figure Milo Yiannopoulos was working towards publishing his memoirs. Publishing giants Simon & Schuster spent a while debating over whether they even wanted to be seen as supporting Yiannopoulos and his message. The provocative face of the far-right had written some unashamedly hateful opinions that eventually became too much for Simon & Schuster to protect under the umbrella of ‘free speech’, and the memoirs were cancelled. Yiannopoulos eventually had to self-publish.

January 2018 has seen further evidence of the process the publishing team went through before they decided the memoirs were not your average right-wing non-fiction. Critique and comments made by Yiannopoulos’s editor have been made public thanks to the documents being put forward in the earlier court case. Sarah Mei on Twitter had realised this and read through the manuscript’s comments with glee before posting them online.

• Comment [A185]: This is definitely not the place for more of your narcissism.

• Comment [A424]: Ego and self-aggrandizement backfire in book.

• Comment [A12]: Delete irrelevant and superfluous ethnic joke.

• Comment [Al44]: Three unfunny jokes in a row. DELETE.

• When he accuses feminism of being a merchandise money-grab:Comment [A726]: Um… like your MILO SWAG?

• When he accuses feminist Jessica Valenti of hate speech:Comment [A137]: If that headline is hate speech, THIS WHOLE BOOK is hate speech.

• On Hillary Clinton’s “demonic rituals”:Comment [A32]: This entire paragraph is just repeating Fake News. There was NO blood, NO semen and there was NO Satanism. Delete.

• On denying the existence of fake news:Comment [A98]: …To deny the existence of fake news entirely is preposterous. Too many people have seen—and fallen for—fake-news stories for this section to have even a shred of credibility. DELETE

• On opening the chapter with physical insults:Comment [A120]: Don’t start chapter with accusation that feminists = fat

• On the use of the word “lesbianie:”Comment [A127]: No need to drag the lesbians into this. And DON’T use lesbian as a slur!

• On feminists being against caring for children:Comment [A143]: Feminists can care for children. So can lesbians.

• On transgender people:Comment [A166]: I will not accept a manuscript that labels an entire class of people “mentally ill.”

• Comment [A471]: All this pop psychology is hogwash. You can’t say ugly people are drawn to the left. Have you ever seen the people at a Trump rally?

One may be forgiven for assuming the editor was a left-leaning, biased sort who would never have considered buying Yiannopoulos’ book, and may be predisposed to dislike the content… That would be wrong however as editor Mitchell Ivers is a conservative. Ivers works the editorial director of Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster specialising in conservative non-fiction. He has edited a multitude of non-fiction from conservative writers, and even agreed with a few of Yiannopoulos’ points, but it seems he was put off by the pure hatred coming from the writer, and the distinct lack of intelligent debate.

Unfortunately Milo Yiannopoulos decided to self-publish and his book of bile hit the Amazon best seller list. I like to imagine Yiannopoulos had bought all those copies himself and they are currently going mouldy in his garage.