anonymous Aussie twitter poster PRGuy unmasks himself to Friendlyjordies

June 25, 2022 8:55 AM

anonymous Aussie twitter poster PRGuy17 unmasks himself to youtuber Friendlyjordies The man behind the formerly anonymous Twitter account PRGuy17 has unmasked himself, after far-right figure and convicted wife beater Avi Yemini attempted to use the courts to reveal whether the account had ties to the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews. Interestingly, PRGuy17 had the facts of the case that Avi Yemeni plead guilty to over the top of his video interview as a watermark, these being "avi yemini threw a chopping board at his ex wife"

For further information on Avi Yemeni's assault conviction

For more background on his history in right wing politics, check out this link.

During the Victorian lockdowns, Avi was also active in the antivaxer / antilockdown protests.

posted by zog (8 comments total)

I'm an Australian and I've never heard of these people. I know the type though, they want to make drama and become little celebrities. I bet they are over the fucking moon that the Guardian is writing about them.
posted by adept256 at 9:33 AM on June 25, 2022 [5 favorites]

I know the type though

Cal MacGregor
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:59 AM on June 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Caspar Jonquil
posted by flabdablet at 11:38 AM on June 25, 2022

Andrew Bolt
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 AM on June 25, 2022

You may have heard of him from such political dramathons as...
posted by chavenet at 11:44 AM on June 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

For non-Australians who might be unaware: Daniel Andrews is a Labor premier, which of course means that Rupert's winged monkeys have been spending his entire term in office trying to persuade the general public to think of him as a dangerous dictatorial Communist; they've had some success in this, the use of the name "Chairman Dan" having now become a very reliable indicator that your interlocutor consumes almost exclusively commercial media.
posted by flabdablet at 12:18 PM on June 25, 2022 [6 favorites]

I hadn't heard of this Avi Yemini guy until various naive and gullible people of my acquaintance started forwarding on his hysterical dog whistling / race baiting so called "edgy" "journalism" several years ago. Since then I've kept an eye on his antics, noting he's lukring at the edges of whatever right wing conspiracy rubbish going down, under the veil of being a so-called journalist.
posted by zog at 4:51 PM on June 25, 2022 [5 favorites]

Yemeni's whole argument was that PRGuy17 was someone Known, and the idea that it's Just Some Guy is sort of fatal to both the actual argument (PRGuy17 was an astroturf campaign) and the implied argument (leftists don't come to their opinions naturally and rationally).

Now, I don't care much for PRGuy - at one point he was promoting jail time for anti-vaxxers, a weirdly fascist note for a supposed liberal to be sounding, and his skills seem to be more based around being popular on Twitter, which involves being loud and strident in a way I find objectionable.

I also don't care much for Friendlyjordies, although I am forced to admit that the accusations at John Barilano of corruption, which were poorly justified at the time, look a lot better now that he apparently organised his own golden parachute.

But it's definitely not a 'let them fight' situation; I imagine the pandemic would have hit Australia far worse if it wasn't for PRGuy obnoxiously pushing the then quite popular narrative that Australians would rather not die to COVID. As it is, the counter-narrative won, which we'll pay the price for in the coming years.
posted by Merus at 11:27 PM on June 25, 2022 [2 favorites]