Michael Krechmer[1][2] (Ukrainian: Майкл Крехмер; born July 12, 1976), better known as Michael Malice, is a Ukrainian-American author, and podcaster. He is the host of "YOUR WELCOME", a video podcast which airs on Podcast One.[3][4]
Michael Malice | |
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Born | Michael Krechmer (1976-07-12) July 12, 1976 (age 46) Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
Occupation | Author, columnist, media personality |
Alma mater | Bucknell University |
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Years active | 2006–present |
Website | |
MichaelMalice.com |
Malice's early life was the subject of Harvey Pekar's 2006 biography Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story.[5]
Malice was born in Lviv, a city in the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.[6][7] Malice has a sister and two nephews.[8] He is of Jewish heritage[1][9] and grew up speaking Russian.[10]
When he was two years old, he moved with his parents to the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.[1][6][11] His father originally worked as a courier and attended Baruch College to study computer science. He later worked for Merrill Lynch.[6] Malice attended Bucknell University.[11][12] Malice also worked for Goldman Sachs before quitting.[13]
Malice is a media personality known for trolling others on social media and for shapeshifting between political groups, according to The American Conservative.[14] His pseudonymous surname was inspired by nicknames such as Sid Vicious and Poly Styrene that were common within the punk movement and the cultural movement that centered around Andy Warhol, two cultural movements that greatly influenced Malice.[1]
Malice is the co-creator and founding editor of the humor blog Overheard in New York that posts submissions of conversations allegedly heard by eavesdroppers in New York City.[12][15][16] Launched in 2003, the site was inspired by a conversation overheard by co-creator S. Morgan Friedman.[16][17] A book based on some of the site's submissions was published in 2006.[12][16][17]
Malice is also the subject of Harvey Pekar's 2006 biographical graphic novel Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, illustrated by Gary Dumm.[12][15] As the title suggests, the biography deals with the development of Malice's egoic personality, a characteristic that Malice does not dispute.[18][19]
Malice also co-authors and ghostwrites for celebrities.[14] He is the co-author of several celebrity memoirs. He co-wrote MMA fighter Matt Hughes's 2008 autobiography Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History.[1] He co-wrote Concierge Confidential: The Gloves Come Off – and the Secrets Come Out! Tales from the Man Who Serves Millionaires, Moguls, and Madmen (2011) with Michael Fazio, one of New York City's most highly sought concierges to the rich and famous,[1] Malice also co-wrote comedian D. L. Hughley's 2012 book I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up: How the Audacity of Dopes Is Ruining America and his 2016 book Black Man, White House: An Oral History of the Obama Years.[1]
In 2014, he published his first solely authored work Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il. It was crowdfunded through Kickstarter and published through Amazon's CreateSpace program.[20] The book is written from the hypothetical first-person view of Kim himself and is a semi-farcical commentary on how he is portrayed to the North Korean people.[1][21][22] Much of the material was based on English language propaganda material that Malice collected while on a week-long trip to Pyongyang, North Korea in 2012.[1][21][22] Malice had previously recounted his experiences of his trip in a 2013 article for Reason magazine.[23] In a generally positive review for NK News, Rob York described Dear Reader as "informative, and surprisingly earnest."[24]
Since 2014, Malice has been a regular guest on the Fox News and Fox Business Network shows The Independents,[25] Kennedy,[3] Red Eye,[3] The Greg Gutfeld Show,[26] The Story with Martha MacCallum,[27] and Tucker Carlson Tonight.[28] He is also a regular guest on The Tom Woods Show podcast[29] and has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience[3] and The Rubin Report.[30] Malice is also a regular columnist at Observer.[31]
Malice sued former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros in October 2016, saying that he was owed $150,000 for ghostwriting her book Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Wanted Made Women Miserable.[32] In an argument to keep the lawsuit under seal, lawyers for Tantaros said that if Malice's role in editing the book was revealed, "it would severely undermine her credibility in the eyes of her colleagues, fans, publisher, and the wider news-media world."[33] Tantaros countersued Malice for defamation, saying that he had submitted fabricated evidence and colluded with Fox News to harm her reputation.[34] Malice's lawsuit was dismissed.[35] He appealed the dismissal and lost the appeal, too.[35]
In 2017, Malice joined Compound Media as the host of the weekly talk show Your Welcome, which Malice writes as YOUR WELCOME as a form of trolling.[4] In 2018 "YOUR WELCOME" moved to the GaS Digital Network, effectively converting to a podcasting platform. In 2021, he moved to PodcastOne. Episodes generally revolve around interviews with political pundits.[non-primary source needed]
In 2018, Malice began hosting the late-night talk show Night Shade with Michael Malice on Compound Media. The show aired for 425 episodes and concluded on October 1, 2020.[citation needed]
In 2019, Malice published his second solely-authored work, The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics. The book is a historical analysis of the American New Right movement which contextualizes the events surrounding Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 United States presidential election.
Malice describes himself as an anarchist or anarchist without adjectives.[1][30] Reason described his politics as a combination of anarchism, Objectivism, and libertarianism in 2006.[36] In 2014, he wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian explaining why he does not vote.[37] Malice has advocated for the peaceful dissolution of the United States.[38]
As sole author:
As editor:
As co-author:
When Twitter troll AsianConservativeMan (“AConMan”) writes, “A border wall is unconservative, and it offends my Asian sensibilities. If there’s anything you won’t find in Asia, it’s a big wall,” he is playing on the misguided arrogance of the typical political loudmouth. There exist people who actually think they’re smart because they notice the “fallacy” within the quote. Citing the Great Wall of China isn’t evidence of AsianConservativeMan’s idiocy so much as public demonstration of one’s own. For similar reasons, the present author often writes “YOUR WELCOME”; the mildly intelligent only catch the “your” while the actually intelligent will additionally notice the needless quotes and capitalization, and deduce intentionality.
Mr. Malice doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and neither did Mr. Pekar, whom Mr. Malice befriended through a mutual acquaintance. “He finally met a Jew who was more obnoxious than him,” Mr. Malice quipped, explaining that Ego & Hubris, which he never expected to come about, is true to life. But it’s only an accurate portrayal, he added, insofar as it represents one part of his identity—albeit a big one.
Does Michael Malice admit to being an unreconstructed 33-year-old Ayn Rand Asshole? He does not—he proclaims it. "My reviews were incredible," he says of 2006's Ego Hubris, the story of his life that Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame told in graphic-novel form. "The Village Voice called me 'the face of jackassery.' Your magazine called me a 'slacker genius.' Did you know that? The Onion called me 'a hateful blowhard who touts his genius-level intellect and dismisses most of the world as inferior, deluded, or hypocritical.' They also called me a 'human cockroach,' because I'm indestructible. Which I am."
I'm an anarchist without adjectives.
Malice is desperate for notoriety," Tantaros says in the complaint... "He is a 'wannabe' television personality whose career as a comedian, writer and commentator never gained steam.
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