From ‘NO!’ To ‘DELETE. UGH.’, Our Favorite Notes Milo Yiannopoulos’ Editor Left On His Manuscript

Hailed as an “over-the-top, self-promotional” piece o’ garb that reads like “275 pages of ‘I’m not owned! I’m not owned!”, Milo Yiannopoulos’ Dangerous is a book that I don’t really wanna read. I don’t know, there’s something about the racism, misogyny, and copious use of the word “trannies” that makes me feel like I wouldn’t really enjoy it.

Here’s something I did enjoy reading, though: The notes that Yiannopoulos’ editor over at Threshold Editions, the Simon & Schuster imprint that was at one point going to publish Dangerous, left on an early manuscript before dropping the title back in February.

I didn’t read the manuscript. Just the comments. They’re…amazing. Even better than the excerpts in the filing.

And a pretty good summary of the book I imagine. pic.twitter.com/2kPESxAlA9

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

Software engineer and RailsBridge founder Sarah Mei found the manuscript, made public by the New York County Clerk’s office as part of Yiannopoulos’ ongoing lawsuit against Simon & Schuster for canceling his book deal, and tweeted screenshots of some of her favorite editor notes on Thursday.

Threshold VP and Editorial Director Mitchell Ivers is unthinkably calm to start, giving the author constructive criticism like “Citations needed” and “Delete irrelevant and superfluous ethnic joke.” His comments quickly devolve into an all-caps rage, ditching full sentences for notes like “NO!” and “DELETE. UGH.”

Also I now know I can write a book, because ffs he wrote A WHOLE CHAPTER about how ugly people hate him

Literally anyone could do better than this pic.twitter.com/xdPhoioUT9

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

Don’t feel bad for Ivers, though! As Vulture staff writer E. Alex Jung noted on Twitter, the editor was basically massaging Yiannopoulos’ hate and vitriol “to make white supremacy, misogyny, and homophobia publishable.”

With that in mind, it’s still pretty satisfying to read Ivers’ comments on the Dangerous manuscript. Check out some more of the comments below.

You can feel the faint air of “oh god, what have we gotten ourselves into” getting stronger pic.twitter.com/bja198uLQy

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

Then the frustration starts creeping in pic.twitter.com/ltVOZ12BaL

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

More from the category of “things a professional editor never imagined they’d need to tell someone” pic.twitter.com/EIOh8cPqss

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

Will immediately start using “if you want to make a case for [fucking ridiculous thing], you’re going to have to employ a lot more intellectual rigor than you use here.” 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/WV8xwt8cwj

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

Mr. Ivers is getting pretty sick of your bullshit, young man. pic.twitter.com/o4TEyYhomi

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017

These were literally just the highlights of the comments.
There’s
so
much
more. pic.twitter.com/eMikiFwl2o

— Sarah Mei (@sarahmei) December 28, 2017