What About Gavin McInnes?

Gavin McInnes. He moved to Brooklyn in the 90s, dressed like a passive aggressive fool and fop, co-founded VICE and is credited with "inventing the hipster." His obnoxiousness gets him run out of VICE, he co-founds a hipster marketing company called Rooster and, shocker, he's asked to leave Rooster after a few years. Too much of an asshole and a sexist. Addicted to attention, Gavin forms a polo shirt army of desperate American men named Proud Boys, in a nod to a song written for "Aladdin" but not included in the Disney movie. In the song, the young Aladdin addresses his mother, telling her he'll stop causing trouble and getting into mischief and make her proud one day. The song was written by two Jews (a people Gavin hates) within a story borrowed from Arab culture (a people Gavin hates). Ah, but this irony is not lost on Gavin because, similar to his hero Donald "John" Trump, all is a big, cynical joke to Gavin. Isn't that cool?! He's a fascist hipster! He's ironic whenever it suits him! Moral and intellectual consistency?! That's for losers!

The all male Proud Boys are "Fight Club" without the mystery and complexity, are "Clockwork Orange" without the imagination and social critique. They are morally bankrupt chumps whining about trans people and trumpeting "Western chauvinism." Did you catch the final word of the last sentence? Gavin thinks it's cool to privilege a culture that can be credibly accused of being on a 500-year crime spree - plundering, marauding, enslaving people and fouling the natural world - and not defend it on its merits, but on "chauvinism."

No matter! Violence and misogynist rhetoric are all just one big jolly romp for Gavin! This is fascism for handlebar mustache hipsters. Mussolini for the craft beer and tattooed man set. Gavin speaks about violence as something recreational and therapeutic. Funny, I've not noticed its salutary effects. Anybody I've ever known who is really into violence either ends up dead or a deeply embittered psycho. For Gavin, the fascist ethos of "might makes right" is a plucky fashion statement. The cheesy, retro Proud Boys logo looks like a cologne brand for eternally adolescent men. Funny, Gavin still stinks.