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Areo Magazine

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We are fans of Quillette, not competitors
—Areo Magazine[1]

Areo Magazine was a right-wing online magazine that campaigned for *cough, cough* "free speech," *cough* opposed political correctness and bashes the left. The magazine was heavily associated with the Intellectual Dark Web and some of its authors supported eugenics and the racist, and pseudoscientific, idea of "human biodiversity."

The magazine had been described as "Quillette's slightly more subtle twin sister".[2] Many of Areo's authors also write articles for Quillette.[2]

In October 2023, Areo Magazine closed and the website is defunct.

Examples[edit]

Areo Magazine published articles from a quirky merry band of authors:

  • Helen Pluckrose, a former editor and director of Areo Magazine and one of the people behind the Grievance studies hoax.[3][4]
  • Toby Young (now associate editor for Quillette),[5] a British right-wing journalist known for supporting eugenics and making homophobic and misogynistic comments on Twitter.[6][7]
  • Jonathan Anomaly (also Quillette contributor),[8] a eugenicist associated with the HBD online network and blogsphere.
  • Noah Carl (also Quillette contributor),[9][10] a pseudoscientific "race realist" who was dismissed from his position as a Toby Jackman Newton Trust Research Fellow at St Edmund's College, Cambridge because he authored racist papers in the OpenPsych pseudojournals and the Mankind Quarterly.
  • Bo Winegard (also Quillette contributor),[11] a pseudoscientific race realist who was dismissed from his position as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Marietta College.[12][13]
  • Ben Sixsmith (also Quillette contributor) has defended "right-wing intellectuals" including racist Charles Murray (co-author of The Bell Curve)[14]
  • Reza Ziai, authored an article defending the free speech activities of Jordan Peterson.[15] Peterson promotes irrational conspiracy theories, has been criticized as an "alt-right darling" and a "favorite of the alt-right" but this does not appear to bother Ziai.[16][17]
  • Chris Ferguson (also Quillette contributor) authored an article defending Bo Winegard after he was fired and suggested it was an attack on academic freedom.[18] Ferguson does not seem to care that Winegard's racialist comments have offended people.
  • John Glynn (not Quillette contributor), a person who faked his credentials as a psychologist with a PhD in order to publish articles. After the hoax was exposed, Areo still kept the fraudulent articles, but later deleted them after it came out that they were plagiarized.[19]
  • Kevin Hsu (not a Quillette contributor), an anti-transgender activist.[20][21] Hsu was banned from Midwest FurFest in December 2013 by the organizers.[21]
  • Lee Jussim (also Quillette contributor) authored an article criticizing left-wing professors on college campuses claiming "there has been a dangerous rise in leftist intolerance that distorts scholarship, corrupts the academy, and endangers academic freedom and fundamental human rights."[22]
  • Samuel Kronen (also Quillette contributor), a pseudoscientific race realist and author of an article titled #ItsOkayToBeWhite which argued that Americans should "recognize white identity as an ethnic identity like any other, rather than a source of specialness or a scourge to be eradicated" and suggested that "in a country in which whites will soon be a minority, it may not be a good idea to tolerate the radical left’s anti-white sentiments."[23]
  • Philippe Lemoine (also Quillette contributor), a pseudoscientific race realist who argues that police violence against black people is rare in the United States.[24] He authored an article entitled "There Is No Epidemic of Police Brutality against Black Men".[25]
  • Chris Sabaitis (also Quillette contributor) authored an article defending nuclear energy and attacking renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines.[26][27]

In other words, Areo's claim that their "contributors are intellectually, professionally and ideologically diverse and include liberals, conservatives, socialists, libertarians, atheists and religious believers" is utterly inaccurate.[3]

Spam[edit]

Internet troll Abd ul-Rahman Lomax spammed the Areo website hundreds of times accusing the magazine of having an anti-Islamic bias. According to owner Helen Pluckrose, Lomax was the "most persistent troll of Areo".[28]

Closure[edit]

Areo Magazine was closed in October 2023. According to Iona Italia its editor-in-chief:

The financial challenges of running an independent magazine almost singlehandedly, and without any regular funding except from small-scale Patreon donations, were enormous. When I took on the magazine, it was making a loss. While I was able to increase Areo’s revenue during my tenure, it was not sufficient to make it a going business concern and, after almost three years, I reluctantly made the decision to cease publication.[29]

She is the managing editor of Quillette.[30] She claims to be authoring an anthology of essays on free speech by Areo writers to be published in 2024.[31]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. Ha. We are fans of Quillette, not competitors. Twitter.
  2. Jump up to: 2.0 2.1 Areo Magazine, Quillette's slightly more subtle twin sister
  3. Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 About. Archived from Areo Magazine.
  4. Areo Magazine Ltd
  5. Toby Young. Archived from Areo Magazine.
  6. Toby Young Resigns Over Deleted Sexist Tweets
  7. Toby Young stands down from government post after just 8 days over misogynistic and homophobic comments
  8. Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Humanity. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  9. Threats to Free Speech at University, and How to Deal with Them—Part 1. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  10. Threats to Free Speech at University, and How to Deal with Them—Part 2. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  11. Bo Winegard. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  12. Why Racists (and Liberals!) Keep Writing for Quillette. "Quillette contributors Ben Winegard, Bo Winegard, Brian Boutwell, and John Paul Wright have all either said they are part of the HBD movement or used the term to describe their own research."
  13. Evolution Working Group on hosting Bo Winegard: ‘It was our mistake’. "Winegard’s research, which discusses psychological differences across human populations, has been criticized for resembling the pseudoscience employed by eugenicists."
  14. In Defense of Right Wing Intellectuals. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  15. The Curious Case of Jordan Peterson. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  16. Why Jordan B. Peterson is a favorite of the alt-right
  17. How dangerous is Jordan B Peterson, the rightwing professor who 'hit a hornets' nest'?
  18. The Firing of Bo Winegard: When Academic Freedom and Outrage Collide. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  19. Letter From the Editors: On Retracting the Essays of John Glynn. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  20. The Sex Researcher and the Furries. Archived from Aero Magazine.areomagazine.com.
  21. Jump up to: 21.0 21.1 Kevin Hsu vs. transgender people. transgendermap.com.
  22. The Reality of the Rise of an Intolerant and Radical Left on Campus. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  23. #ItsOkayToBeWhite. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  24. Police Violence against Black Men Is Rare
  25. There Is No Epidemic of Police Brutality against Black Men. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  26. Environmental Legislation for Humanity. Archived from Aero Magazine.
  27. Sabaitis was influenced by Michael Shellenberger's article Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet for Quillette.
  28. Helen Pluckrose on Twitter. twitter.com.
  29. Areo Magazine. ionaitalia.com.
  30. Iona Italia. quillette.com.
  31. About Me. ionaitalia.com.