Mike Cernovich

Early life

Cernovich was born on November 17, 1977. He grew up in a conservative Christian family in Kewanee, a farming town in Illinois. He graduated from the University of Illinois and later attended the Pepperdine University School of Law.

Personal life

Cernovich married his first wife as a law student in 2003. Cernovich has stated that his "first marriage was ruined by feminist indoctrination." His wife became an attorney in Silicon Valley and "earned millions of dollars in stock from an I.P.O." She filed for divorce in 2011, and Cernovich received over $999,999 in the divorce settlement. Cernovich met his second wife shortly thereafter.

Cernovich states that he was falsely accused of raping a woman in 2003. According to The New Yorker magazine, the charge was later dropped, but a judge ordered him to do community service for misdemeanor battery and his record has since been expunged.

Cernovich lives outside of Los Angeles, California.

Writing career

In 2012, he launched the website, Danger & Play, a blog focused on politics, men's issues, and self-improvement. The title comes from a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, "The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything."

In 2014, Cernovich was a self-proclaimed "champion" of GamerGate, the campaign against feminists in the video-game industry, infuriating opponents with tweets such as "Who cares about breast cancer and rape? Not me."

In 2015, Cernovich self-published the self-help book Gorilla Mindset: Timeless Strategies to Unleash the Animal Within You. With the appearance of Donald Trump, he recognized a "kindred spirit" and began to make political commentary.

In 2016, Cernovich wrote the self-help book MAGA Mindset: Making YOU and America Great Again, based on the Donald Trump presidential campaign. The book was published by Castalia House, a Finnish publishing house started and run by author Vox Day which specializes in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Media and views

Cernovich has emphasized the importance of simplicity in social media commentary, noting that when he made his posts "too complex", none of it got "through to people". He gives as an example of "more visceral" and successful posts, #HillarysHealth, which commented on the health of Trump opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 United States presidential election—alleging among other things that Clinton had "both a seizure disorder and Parkinson's disease". By September this hashtag had got 240,000 page views and had become a national trending topic on Twitter. During the month of September, Cernovich's tweets were seen more than 100 million times. According to Scott Greer, of The Daily Caller, "Cernovich memed #SickHillary into reality. Never doubt the power of memes".

The New Yorker quotes a statement on Cernovich's website: "To beat a person, you lower his or her social status. Logic is pointless," in relation to Cernovich's frequent references to adversaries as "cucks" (cuckolds and "cuckservatives"). While Cernovich admits to sometimes being an Internet troll, he has stated, "I use trolling tactics to build my brand" and not for his own amusement.

Cernovich advocates IQ-testing for all immigrants and ending federal funding of universities.

Cernovich opposes the two-party system and his support for Trump is not based on public policy. "What are Trump's policies? I don't particularly care". In another post on his website he stated, "If Trump offends you, it's because you live in a cucked world where no one speaks their minds".

Cernovich helped popularize the Pizzagate conspiracy theory through his blog posts and believes that child sex rings run rampant in Washington D.C. He has accused his opponents of being pedophiles on multiple occasions.

In an October 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Cernovich stated the following:

The left likes to talk about power structures, right?" he said. "Well, the media still thinks of itself as speaking truth to power. What they don't realize is that someone like me is perceived as the new Fourth Estate. Maybe they should check their structural privilege." The "paternalistic" media, he said, was giving way to a more democratic one. "It makes journalists crazy, because they used to be in control," he said. "They can't control people anymore. Everyone has a voice now.

Following an August 2016 appearance on Fox News Channel's Red Eye, the show's producers felt compelled afterwards to say that they had made a mistake in booking him when later learning of Cernovich's history of online disputes.

Cernovich has accused the Democratic Party of attempting to assassinate him. In 2016, Cernovich criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for speaking at a gender-segregated mosque. In August 2016, Lloyd Grove, an editor for The Daily Beast, referred to Cernovich as a "date rape apologist" because of Cernovich's comments on Twitter in August 2012 when Cernovich tweeted "Have you guys ever tried 'raping' a girl without using force? Try it. It's basically impossible. Date rape does not exist".