Ian Miles Cheong

Overview

Ian Miles Cheong is a right-wing political commentator largely known for his conservative views on the internet. Cheong first grew an audience in the early 2010s as a video game journalist and as the editor of the gaming site Gameranx. Cheong also moderated several large subreddits, a position he was banned from after taking money from media companies to promote their content as a "Social Media Consultant." In the latter half of the 2010s, Cheong continued to grow an audience as a conservative Trump supporter on X under the handle @stillgray. Since 2017, he's worked for the Daily Caller, a website co-founded by broadcast journalist Tucker Carlson. His commentary on U.S. politics is often undercut by people pointing out the fact that Cheong is a Malaysian native and resident.

Online History

Gaming Journalism

Early examples of Ian Miles Cheong's internet history purportedly exist in the form of screenshots taken from the website RPG Codex, a forum for discussing role-playing games. The screenshot allegedly shows a compilation of messages shared by Cheong before 2010 in which he can be seen expressing controversial and Nazi ideas.

Cheong began his career as a video game journalist under the moniker Sol Invictus (similar to his purported RPG Codex username) at Hell Mode where he was accused of writing biased articles in return for perks from game developers. A notable example of this is his 2010 review of Hellgate: London in which he describes his lackluster impression of the game while continuing to promote it.^[1][2]

Ian continued to be involved in gaming journalism in the early 2010s, eventually creating the website Gameranx, which notably published several articles promoting Zoë Quinn's game Depression Quest.^[3][4][5]

A reupload of a 2013 YouTube video posted by Cheong can be accessed below.^[8]

Reddit Modship Controversy

Ian Miles Cheong acted as a moderator for several popular subreddits in the early 2010s, including /r/AskReddit, /r/Politics, /r/WTF and /r/TodayILearned. In 2012, Cheong's Reddit handle /u/SolInvictus was banned for spamming and promoting links to specific websites, which included Global Post and Uproxx besides his own site Gameranx. Cheong's spamming and promotion habit was first pointed out on /r/reportthespammers by Redditor /u/TrollingThunder.^[6]

In an April 3rd, 2012, article, Boston-based news outlet GlobalPost subsequently told the Daily Dot that Cheong was a "Social Media Consultant" hired to promote links to their website.^[7]

Shift To Conservative Politics

Beginning in the mid-to-late 2010s, Ian Miles Cheong slowly began shifting toward right-leaning political commentary. For example, in May 2015, Cheong made a blog post apologizing for "dehumanizing" gamers during his anti-GamerGate era, saying, "Over the past few years I got swept up in the social justice movement."^[9]

In 2017, Cheong then began writing for the Daily Caller, a right-wing news and opinion publication co-founded by Tucker Carlson. Cheong also began posting conservative talk points on X (Twitter), as seen in a now-deleted allegation that an "anti-Trump" communist was behind the Charlottesville, Virginia car attack of 2017 (seen below, left).

Another early viral tweet from Cheong indicating his rightward political shift was his assertion that PewDiePie's N-Word Controversy was a "heated gaming moment" (seen below, right).

On September 14th, 2020, Cheong posted misinformation implicating a Black Compton resident in the shooting of two LAPD officers. The posts have since been deleted.^[10]

Criticism

Ian Miles Cheong often faces criticism from many online for ideological flip-flopping and for commentating on U.S. politics while being a resident of Malaysia and purportedly never having been to the United States. The earliest known evidence of Cheong saying that he resides in Malaysia is a July 18th, 2014, post on X^[11] (seen below). On June 16th, 2018, Redditor NorrisOBE made a post to /r/Destiny with further alleged evidence of Cheong being Malaysian.^[12]

On December 3rd, 2018, X^[13] user @osamabishounen posted a screenshot of Cheong interacting with a Flat Earth X account. The post gathered over 12,000 likes in five years (seen below, left). On June 1st, 2020, X^[14] user @funkefly made a post reacting to how Cheong appeared to have confused comedy-rapper Zack Fox for Toby Fox, the creator of indie RPG Undertale. The post gathered over 8,000 likes in three years (seen below, right).

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References