Gavin McInnes (born 17 July 1970) was a Canadian far-right writer and political commentator who co-founded Vice in 1994 and the Proud Boys in 2016.
Biography
Gavin McInnes was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England in 1970 to Scottish parents who immigrated to Canada when he was four. He was raised in Ottawa, Ontario, and he co-founded the Vice magazine in 1994 and became known as the "godfather of hipsterdom". In 2002, he controversially told the New York Press that he was glad that most Williamsburg, Brooklyn hipsters were white, later claiming that his comments were meant to ridicule The New York Times and the "baby boomer media". In 2003, he reiterated his belief that, "I love being white and I think it's something to be very proud of. I don't want out culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life." He left Vice in 2008 due to "creative differences" and became an author, founded an advertising agency, and took on acting roles. In August 2014, he was fired as chief creative officer for Rooster after authoring an essay titled "Transphobia is Perfectly Natural", and he became a prominent far-right political commentator. He co-founded the Proud Boys political organization in 2016, and his organization quickly became known as a neo-fascist "fight club" due to its role in the 2017 Unite the Right rally and other violent confrontations with Antifa and progressive counter-protesters. He also hosted a re-enactment of the Japanese nationalist Otoya Yamaguchi's assassination of Japanese socialist politician Inejiro Asanuma at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City. While he was de-platformed by several social media platforms and payment services for his group's alt-right affiliation, McInnes self-identified as a "pro-gay, pro-Israel, virulently anti-racist libertarian"; however, he expressed his love for "punching in the face", accused African-Americans of mass conformity, claimed that Asians were forced to emote more with their mouths because of a perceived lack of emotional expression in their eyes, claimed that the Jews were responsible for the Holodomor, defended Holocaust deniers, created a video titled "Ten Things I Hate about Jews", claimed that Muslims had problems with inbreeding and mass murder, claimed that "95% of women would be happier at home", claimed that women were not strong police officers and that female police officers were all "fat", criticized the idea that women did not want to be dominated, claimed that "No means no" was a puritanical statement, claimed that the trivialization of childbirth and domestic life forced women to pretend to be men in order to "feign toughness", claimed that white women having abortions and the rise of immigration led to "white genocide in the West", and claimed that Black South Africans attacking white farms and supporting land redistribution were trying to get back "land they never had". Despite his racist views, he married a Native American woman who identified as a liberal Democrat, and he said of "Indians", "I like them. I actually like them so much, I made three."