Gavin McInnes
Gavin Miles McInnes (/məˈkɪnɪs/; born 17 July 1970) is a Canadian writer, podcaster, far-right commentator and founder of the Proud Boys. He is the host of Get Off My Lawn with Gavin McInnes on his website Censored.TV.[1] He co-founded Vice magazine in 1994 at the age of 24, and relocated to the United States in 2001. In 2016 he founded the Proud Boys, an American far-right millitant organization[2] which was designated a terrorist group in Canada[3][4] and New Zealand after he left the group.[5] McInnes has been described as promoting violence against political opponents,[6][7][8][9][10] but has claimed that he has only supported political violence in self-defense and that he is not far-right or a supporter of fascism, identifying as "a fiscal conservative and libertarian".[11]
Gavin McInnes
Canadian
- Writer
- podcast host
- political commentator
- actor
3
Born to Scottish parents in Hertfordshire, England, McInnes immigrated to Canada as a child. He graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa before moving to Montreal and co-founding Vice with Suroosh Alvi and Shane Smith.[12] He relocated with Vice Media to New York City in 2001.[13][14] During his time at Vice, McInnes was called a leading figure in the New York hipster subculture.[15] He holds both Canadian and British citizenship and lives in Larchmont, New York.[12]
In 2018, McInnes was fired from Blaze Media,[16] and was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for violating terms of use related to promoting violent extremist groups and hate speech.[17][18] In June 2020, McInnes' account was suspended from YouTube for violating YouTube's policies concerning hate speech, posting content that was "glorifying [and] inciting violence against another person or group of people."[19]
Early life
Gavin Miles McInnes[20] was born on 17 July 1970[21] in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England,[22] the son of Scottish parents James McInnes, who later became the Vice-President of Operations at Gallium Visual Systems Inc. – a Canadian defence company – and Loraine McInnes, a retired business teacher.[23] His family migrated to Canada when McInnes was four, settling in Ottawa, Ontario.[24] He attended Ottawa's Earl of March Secondary School.[25] As a teen, McInnes played in an Ottawa punk band called Anal Chinook.[26] He graduated from Carleton University.[23]
Career
Vice Media (1994–2007)
McInnes co-founded Vice in 1994 with Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi.[27] The magazine was launched as the Voice of Montreal with government funding. The intention of the founders was to provide work and a community service.[28] When the editors later sought to dissolve their commitments with the original publisher Alix Laurent, they bought him out and changed the name to Vice in 1996.[29] Richard Szalwinski, a Canadian software millionaire, acquired the magazine and relocated the operation to New York City in the late 1990s.[30][31]
During McInnes's tenure he was described as the "godfather" of hipsterdom by WNBC[32] and as "one of hipsterdom's primary architects" by AdBusters.[33] He occasionally contributed articles to Vice, including "The VICE Guide to Happiness"[34] and "The VICE Guide to Picking Up Chicks",[35] and co-authored two Vice books: The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll,[36] and Vice Dos and Don'ts: 10 Years of VICE Magazine's Street Fashion Critiques.[37]
In an interview in the New York Press in 2002, McInnes said that he was pleased that most Williamsburg hipsters were white.[38][39] McInnes later wrote in a letter to Gawker that the interview was done as a prank intended to ridicule "baby boomer media like The Times".[40] After he became the focus of a letter-writing campaign by a black reader, Vice apologized for McInnes's comments.[39] McInnes was featured in a 2003 New York Times article about Vice magazine; McInnes' political views were described by the Times as "closer to a white supremacist's."[39]
In 2006, he was featured in The Vice Guide to Travel with actor and comedian David Cross in China.[41] He left Vice in 2008 due to what he described as "creative differences".[13] In a 2013 interview with The New Yorker, McInnes said his split with Vice was about the increasing influence of corporate advertising on Vice's content, stating that "Marketing and editorial being enemies had been the business plan".[42]
Personal life
In 2005, he married Manhattan-based publicist and consultant Emily Jendrisak, the daughter of Native American activist Christine Whiterabbit Jendrisak[23][129] who describes herself as a liberal Democrat.[76] About his wife's ethnicity and their children together, McInnes said, "I've made my views on Indians very clear. I like them. I actually like them so much, I made three."[130] They live in Larchmont, New York.[131]
In his 2020 documentary White Noise, and in a follow up article about alt-right activist Lauren Southern, Daniel Lombroso, a journalist for The Atlantic, reported that McInnes sexually propositioned Southern after an appearance on his show in June 2018. McInnes denied having done so.[132][133]
McInnes is a permanent resident of the United States.[12]