Editors' comments from Milo Yiannopoulos' abandoned book revealed

Controversial conservative journalist Milo Yiannopoulos had reportedly secured a $250,000 advance for the book ‘Dangerous’ which was due to be published earlier this year. In February 2017 however, publishers Simon & Schuster, who have also previously printed works by Donald Trump, reneged on the deal following an interview in which Yiannopoulos appeared to condone pederasty.

Through the ensuing court case launched by the self declared ‘troll’ against Simon & Schumer, paperwork has been released online showing the notes made by exasperated editor Mitchell Ivers.

Hate is the currency of Yiannopoulos’ career as an online super-villain, and a work written to inform on, as the title of the prologue elucidates: ‘The Art of the Troll’, could be taken seriously when Yiannopoulos’ role model and the most notorious of twitter trolls is also currently the President of the United States. However, this latest release of the 'Dangerous' manuscript shows how Ivers scored out large sections of the text to the extent of omitting entire chapters before the reportedly ghost-written work was abandoned for good.

After the prologue: ‘The Art of the Troll’, the chapters of Yiannoupolos’ self-indulgent prose are structured around ‘Why ‘certain group’ hates me’, from political factions like ‘the progressive left’ and ‘the alt-right’ to increasingly juvenile categories like ‘ugly people’. Ivers' notes in the margin increasingly highlight the convoluted nature of arguments and the lack of evidence supporting controversial claims, and it seems that by the end of the book Yiannopoulos can add his editor to the list of people who hate him. Ivers’ points out that overall, ‘throughout the book, your best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandizement and scattershot thinking’.

Since it was self-published in July, a few more copies of ‘Dangerous’ have been sold in the US than the UK where sales have been extremely low, but the release of the edited manuscript is likely to ensure that sales do not improve. The public criticism which a ‘professional troll’ usually thrives from is, in this recent turn of events, set to further damage rather than bolster his revenue prospects.

 The documents from the New York states’ court website, including the copy edited by Mitchell Ivers’, are available here.