Gavin McInnes

Gavin Miles McInnes (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 Censored.TV, which he founded.

Gavin Miles McInnes was born on 17 July 1970 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England, 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.

His family migrated to Canada when McInnes was four, settling in Ottawa, Ontario.

He attended Ottawa's Earl of March Secondary School.

As a teen, McInnes played in an Ottawa punk band called Anal Chinook.

He graduated from Carleton University.

Richard Szalwinski, a Canadian software millionaire, acquired the magazine and relocated the operation to New York City in the late 1990s.

During McInnes's tenure he was described as the "godfather" of hipsterdom by WNBC and as "one of hipsterdom's primary architects" by AdBusters.

He occasionally contributed articles to Vice, including "The VICE Guide to Happiness" and "The VICE Guide to Picking Up Chicks", and co-authored two Vice books: The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, and Vice Dos and Don'ts: 10 Years of VICE Magazine's Street Fashion Critiques.

He co-founded Vice magazine in 1994 at the age of 24, and relocated to the United States in 2001.

McInnes co-founded Vice in 1994 with Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi.

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.

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.

He relocated with Vice Media to New York City in 2001.

During his time at Vice, McInnes was called a leading figure in the New York hipster subculture.

He holds both Canadian and British citizenship and lives in Larchmont, New York.

In an interview in the New York Press in 2002, McInnes said that he was pleased that most Williamsburg hipsters were white.

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".

After he became the focus of a letter-writing campaign by a black reader, Vice apologized for McInnes's comments.

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."

In 2006, he was featured in The Vice Guide to Travel with actor and comedian David Cross in China.

He left Vice in 2008 due to what he described as "creative differences".

After leaving Vice in 2008, McInnes became increasingly known for far-right political views.

In 2008, McInnes created the website StreetCarnage.com.

He also co-founded an advertising agency called Rooster where he served as creative director.

McInnes was featured in season 3 of the Canadian reality TV show Kenny vs. Spenny, as a judge in the "Who is Cooler?"

episode.

In 2010, McInnes was approached by Adult Swim and asked to play the part of Mick, an anthropomorphic Scottish soccer ball, in the short-lived Aqua Teen Hunger Force spin-off Soul Quest Overdrive.

After losing a 2010 pilot contest to Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge, six episodes of Soul Quest Overdrive were ordered, with four airing in Adult Swim's 4 AM DVR Theater block on 25 May 2011 before quickly being cancelled.

McInnes jokingly blamed the show's cancellation on the other cast members (Kristen Schaal, David Cross, and H. Jon Benjamin) not being "as funny" as him.

McInnes wrote a column for Taki's Magazine, beginning around 2011, that made casual use of racial and anti-gay slurs, as described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

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".

In 2016 he founded the Proud Boys, an American far-right organization which was designated a terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand after he left the group.

McInnes has been described as promoting violence against political opponents, but has claimed that he only has 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".

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.

In 2018, McInnes was fired from Blaze Media, and was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for violating terms of use related to promoting violent extremist groups and hate speech.

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."