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The untold story of Baked Alaska, a rapper turned BuzzFeed

personality turned alt-right troll
Oliver Darcy Apr 30, 2017, 5:59 PM MDT

Tim "Treadstone" Gionet

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Main content of President Donald Trump.
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 Tim "Treadstone" Gionet, aka "Baked
Alaska." Baked Alaska

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 The 29-year-old internet troll, most widely known as Baked Alaska,
seemed to be an unlikely person to wade into the real-estate
mogul's camp at the start of the 2016 election season.

Back then, Gionet identified as a carefree, easygoing libertarian. He

supported Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's bid for the White House,
firmly opposed the war on drugs, and championed the cause of
Black Lives Matter, actively participating in the movement's street
demonstrations.

And he worked at BuzzFeed, hardly an incubator for Trump

supporters. But Gionet was the exception. As he put it, "BuzzFeed
turned me into a monster." Specifically, a monster who opposed
what he saw as political correctness gone amok. He found refuge
with those who voraciously supported the freewheeling, brash
antics of Trump.

"I'll never forget this story," Gionet said, recalling to Business

Insider the "aha moment" that drove him toward Trump. "I was
Jump to talking about the new Justin Bieber album. And I was like, 'Dude,
that new Justin Bieber album is dope. I have to admit, I love Justin
Main content
Bieber. He is totally my spirit animal.' And someone came up to me
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and was like, 'Hey bro, you can't say spirit animal, that's culturally
appropriating Native American culture and that's not cool.'"
 PRICE DROP

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 "I was like, 'What? What the f--- are you talking about?' I had heard
… about the dangers of political correctness, but I thought this was
just exaggerated," Gionet said. "I thought there was no way people
in real life could be like this."

Gionet said the incident, and others like it, sent him down a path
that ultimately led to his resignation from BuzzFeed and eventual
transformation into one of the internet's most notorious alt-right
trolls.

"The thing that really attracted me to Trump was his stance against
political correctness," he said.

Gionet is something of a Forrest Gump of politics. He surfaced in a

number of places in the far-right universe during the 2016
presidential election. Upon leaving BuzzFeed, Gionet went on the
road as manager for right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos's
college tour. He spent Christmas with blogger Chuck Johnson. And
he finished the campaign working with "new right" personality
Jump to Mike Cernovich.

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Jump to
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 During this time, his influence in the far-right internet community
grew. In addition to forging connections with the right's top
internet celebrities, Gionet saw accelerated growth on his own
Twitter account. He gained thousands of followers, arriving at the
approximately 160,000 figure of people who follow him today on
the social media platform. Gionet also became one of the de-facto
leaders of the alt-right meme army, using images of characters like
Pepe the Frog to bait those in opposition to Trump.

And yet, despite the person he projected on the outside, some of

those closest to Gionet had reservations about how much he really
bought into the politics he now hawks. Many were surprised at how
far right he has veered. His politics strained personal and
professional relationships.

In conversations with friends, family, and former co-workers, an

image of a kind but often lonely social-media genius emerged. One
who had reinvented himself several times in his life in a desperate
quest to fill the void of loneliness with fame and attention —

Jump to irrespective of the cost.

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"I've seen him happy, I've seen him sad, I've seen him doing well,
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I've seen him doing bad, but his whole thing is he wants people to
like him. So he wants to be famous," said Joe Hood, a former friend
and colleague who worked at BuzzFeed Video with Gionet. "To me,
 his conflict now is that it was easier to get famous without people
liking him. And now he's famous, but no one likes him."

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 'I need a name. I need Baked Alaska Baked Alaska

an industry name to
be known by'

Gionet was born in Anchorage, Alaska, to a family of of eight

children, five of whom were adopted from Russia. His father, Paul,
is a pharmacist. Susanne, his mother, is a nurse. They are devout
Christians and raised their children as such.

The family also operates a non-profit organization, Russian

Encouragement Ministries, which aims to spread the gospel and
provide medical supplies to orphanages in eastern Russia — a cause
his father said Gionet actively participated in during his youth.

"Tim has come to Russia with us probably 15 times," Paul said,

adding Gionet even speaks "a little bit" of Russian. "As a kid,
teenager, and young adult."

Upon graduating high school in 2006, Gionet left Alaska for Los
Jump to Angeles to attend Azusa Pacific University and study film and
Main content marketing. During his time there, he said he scored a position at
Search Warner Bros. Records, where he was spotted by Kevin Lyman, the
Account founder of Warped Tour. He offered him a job.
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 "He was a nice guy. And I said, why don't you come work for me for
a bit?" Lyman said. "He wasn't 'Baked Alaska' at that point."

In fact, it was Lyman who helped give Gionet his now-infamous

moniker.

"He's like, 'You're in the entertainment business. You need to have a

name. All anyone cared about is you're from Alaska. Your name is
'Alaska,''" Gionet said. "I was like, "OK?' He was like, 'Trust me,
you're from Alaska, that's all anyone is going to want to ask you
about. That's your name.' He's like, 'You need a name. No one cares
about Tim. They care about Alaska!'"

"I was like, 'Damnit, this guy is a genius! This guy is right. I need a
name, I need an industry name to be known by," he continued. "So
my name was 'Alaska.' After a while I realized just being called
Alaska worked, but I needed to differentiate myself. I needed to be
more unique than Alaska. That's like someone being named 'Texas'
or 'Kentucky.' You have to brand yourself a little more. So I came up
Jump to with 'Baked Alaska,' because at the time I was a stoner. So I was like
the baked kid from Alaska. And it's also a double meaning because
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it's a dessert."
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 Lyman said Gionet started as an intern but "worked his way into a
paid position" doing social media and marketing with the Warped
Tour. Eventually, however, Gionet left. He said he briefly worked in
2011 for Capitol Records before deciding to pursue a career of his
own in music.

Gionet developed a rap persona which he described as a "wild,

redneck, kick-ass" character designed to take the "web by storm."
He filmed music videos for songs like "Alaska Vacation" and "I
Climb Mountains," which featured him wearing outlandish
Jump to clothing items while rapping alongside scantily clad women.

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 "He literally … turned up as this artist, 'Baked Alaska.' I couldn't
believe it," Lyman said. "I didn't think he had aspirations of
becoming an artist when he worked with me. He never mentioned
it."

The music videos, despite their rich production quality, failed to

achieve viral success. Nevertheless, word did get back to Gionet's
Jump to deeply religious father, who expressed strong disapproval at the
content of the music.
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 "I have seen some of his stuff in the past," Paul said. "Of course, that
makes us but heads because I don't approve of the language. He
knows I'm at odds with his language."

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 Gionet was also not happy with his life as a rapper. He said he
became involved in the Los Angeles party scene and struggled with
drugs and alcohol, eventually seeking professional help to get
sober. He was also "discouraged with how things were going" with
his career and decided to search for other opportunities in the Los
Angeles area.

That's when he came across a job opening at BuzzFeed.

"BuzzFeed Motion Pictures needed a social media strategist," he

said, "and I happened to be the perfect fit for them."

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He got a call about six months later.

 'A new chapter'

Gionet had hit a low point in his life. He made the decision to leave
Los Angeles for Alaska. Bags packed and on his way to the airport,
his phone rang.

"I literally had my suitcase packed up, wheeling it down the stairs,"
he explained. "I called the Uber, I was going to move back to Alaska,
and I had my suitcase bringing it into my Uber. And as I am putting
my suitcase into the Uber car, I get a call, and I'm like, 'What?' And
the call was from BuzzFeed."

Gionet said it came as a "complete surprise." He "didn't even

remember" applying for the job.

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 "And I was like, 'If you guys are really serious, I'll cancel my ticket
and go interview with you. But if you guys aren't that interested, I
don't want to waste my time,'" he said. "And they were like, 'No, no.
We're really interested. You really fit what we are looking for. And
we promise you it won't be a waste of your time.' So I was like, 'OK,
cool.' So I canceled my plane ticket, went in and interviewed. They
loved me and I got the job right away. And this opened up a new
chapter in my life."

Initially, Gionet said he loved working for the digital outlet. As a

social-media strategist, he was responsible for growing BuzzFeed
Video's social-media accounts, including Tasty, its food-video
staple that had just launched. Colleagues who worked with him
said he was brilliant at his job.

"He did amazing things. He made the Tasty Instagram and Tasty
Twitter. And it became like the top 10 accounts in six months,"

Jump to Hood said. "Some of that is BuzzFeed's brand but he is really f---ing
good at social media. Like, it's insane."
Main content
Search
Account Working at BuzzFeed Video, Gionet also appeared in the outlet's
web videos. With his mullet and distinct clothing style, he became a
regular personality. He starred in BuzzFeed's "If You're Life Was
 'Making a Murderer'" video, in addition to taking roles in more
traditional productions like "Guys Swap Phones For A Day."

But as politics moved from the backdrop to the forefront of media

during election season, Gionet said he became frustrated with the
direction of the outlet.

"When I started BuzzFeed, I was making videos about cats and beer
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pong, OK? By the end of it, it was about feminism and white
Main content privilege," he said. "I don't know when the shift happened, but
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something happened in the culture where they were pushing these
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anti-white, anti-male agendas."
 Gionet also morphed into a vocal Trump supporter and started to
wear his "Make America Great Again" hat around the office. (He
even later had Trump's face tattooed to his arm.)

"Let's just say I got a lot of dirty looks and a lot of people stopped
invited me to the meetings. I'm not f---ing joking," he said. "It was
really weird once I came out public as a Trump supporter at
BuzzFeed. It was like I was a heretic, I was like the guy no one
wanted to talk to. All their opinions about me had completely
reversed and it was difficult."

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Former colleagues seemed to corroborate his claims, telling stories
of Gionet, who they described as having social anxiety, being the
 subject of jokes around the office.

"Definitely he was bullied in his department. It was all girls — so

like they would laugh at him and stuff like that," Hood said. "You
don't wear a MAGA hat to an office where like 30% of the people are
gay. It wasn't the right thing to do and he was doing it to instigate
something."

Will Neff, who worked with Gionet at BuzzFeed, also said "a few of
the girls in the office started joking that he looked like a pedophile."
Neff said the pushback Gionet received for his views seemed to
push him further to the right.

"I think working at BuzzFeed made him eventually more

Republican," he said.

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 In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for BuzzFeed disputed
Gionet's claims of political discrimination, saying that "any
suggestion that this former employee was treated unfairly for his
political beliefs is completely false."

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Main content Baked Alaska Baked Alaska

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'I got to meet Donald Trump'
 Amid mounting tension with colleagues, Gionet left BuzzFeed for a
job managing Yiannopoulos's college tour in 2016. He traveled the
country with the right-wing provocateur, keeping his schedule and
planning the logistics for various events.

"It was a great experience," Gionet said. "I got to tour around and go
to all the different college stops and put together the tour budget
and the press stuff."

As an assistant to Yiannopoulos, Gionet also traveled to the

Republican National Convention, receiving special access, through
the right-wing outlet Breitbart, to various functions in Cleveland.

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 "I got to meet Donald Trump," Gionet said. "He's a great guy. Got to
shake his hand and talk to him."

When Trump met him, he signed the tattoo of his face that Gionet
had inked to his arm.

"He was like, 'Wow, that's great!' And he thought it was great,"
Gionet said. "He looked a little surprised. It's probably a little funny
to see your face on someone else's body."

Gionet and Yiannopoulos ultimately went their separate ways. A

person familiar with the matter said Yiannopoulos fired him for an
undisclosed reason.

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 It was suspected Gionet had become a liability for Yiannopoulos, as
he had begun drifting further and further to the right. His former
colleagues took notice of Gionet's increasingly extreme views.

"If you are going far-right of Milo, then you are in a very extreme,
extreme demographic," said Neff, who also worked at the
libertarian Reason magazine and is familiar with the political
landscape on the right. "There aren't many people that are right of
Milo. And there certainly aren't many people that are so far right of
Milo, that Milo felt the need to coach them back."

Others doubted how sincere he was in his views.

"He never was political," Lyman said, speaking of his relationship

with Gionet. "That's something he's invented for attention more
than anything."

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 "I don't think Tim believes in anything," said another former
employer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity over fear of
reprisals. "I think Tim just wants someone to love him."

Briefly on his own after parting with Yiannopoulos, Gionet

remained active in the Trump movement. He drew on his musical
background to write songs and produce music videos aimed at
exciting Trump supporters. His most successful was a song called
"MAGA Anthem." It featured Gionet rapping lyrics like, "Build the
wall, it just got 10 feet higher, build and build and build, just build
the wall" and, "I just want to make America great, I just want to have
a Trump steak on my plate."

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 Gionet's profile continued to rise, and he forged relationships with
many others on the right. One was Cernovich, who was quickly
growing his own brand as a right-wing provocateur on Twitter.

"He was on Twitter," Cernovich said, explaining how he first

encountered Gionet. "He had been working with Milo and after he
had been finished working with him, I thought it would be cool to
Jump to have him do some of the same kind of event organizing while he
was working with Milo."
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 Cernovich hired him for an undisclosed amount of money and the
two worked on a project called MAGA3X until Election Day. The
idea was based off of Grant Cardone's book, "The 10X Rule" — a self-
help book aimed at teaching readers how to 10X their life. In the
case of MAGA3X, the idea was to have each Trump supporter take
three fellow Trump voters to the polls on Election Day.

And after Trump's surprise electoral victory in November,

Gionet traveled to central California to spend Christmas with
notorious right-wing blogger Chuck Johnson.

Jump to "We are friends," Johnson said. "He came up to visit me for
Main content Christmas. I knew he wasn't going home for Christmas, back to
Search Alaska, so he hung out with me for a few days."
Account

"He stayed at my place for a few days. We played Monopoly a

bunch," Johnson added. "I'm big into board games."
 Gionet also led other social-media campaigns. Perhaps his most
famous was getting #TrumpCup to trend on Twitter and become
the subject of national headlines. The idea behind the hashtag was
for patrons of Starbucks to tell the baristas that their name was
Trump so that the employees would write it on the cups. The
campaign was prompted by a customer who said a Starbucks
employee refused to write "Trump" on his cup. 

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 Trump signs Gionet's tattooed arm after a rally in San Diego in May 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan
Ernst

'I'm alt-right. I've always been alt-right'

The alt-right descended into civil war following Trump's surprise

victory — and Cernovich and Gionet were at the center of it.

In celebration of Trump winning the presidency, Cernovich

organized the "Deploraball," a party aimed at celebrating the new
breed of Republicans who had helped usher the billionaire into the
Oval Office.

The party, which took place the night before Inauguration Day, was
initially set to feature several luminaries of the alt-right. But
Cernovich said he wanted to ensure that the Deploraball remained
free of the racist elements for which the alt-right had become
known. Moreover, he wanted to use the night to launch what he has
dubbed the "new right," a collection of nationalist, populist Trump
supporters who reject calls for a white ethno-state.
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 Meanwhile, Gionet continued to radicalize. He openly questioned
the role of Jewish people in society and media — comments
that were widely criticized as anti-Semitic and that he now says he
regrets making.

Cernovich tried to tame Gionet, but it was to no avail. Eventually,

Cernovich chose to take action. In late December, Gionet and white
nationalist Richard Spencer were disinvited from the event.

The move to exclude him from the Deploraball infuriated Gionet.

He recorded a Periscope video, lashing out at Cernovich.

"Mike got upset that I was tweeting some things about Jewish
Jump to
people," he said. "I don't hate Jews, but there are some things that I
Main content like to talk about. I'm alt-right. I've always been alt-right. I've never
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said I'm not alt-right, unlike Mike Cernovich, Paul Joseph Watson,
Account
Milo, and these other cucks. I've always been alt-right."
 Gionet stressed he regretted the comments he made about the
Jewish community, saying he was "heated and misspoke."

"It didn't come out how it was supposed to come out," he said. "I
have nothing but respect and love for people of all faiths, including
people of the Jewish faith. And I would never want them to think
that I think otherwise. And it does break my heart. It's not my belief
at all. I have no problem with Jewish people."
Jump to

Main content Months later, Gionet says he has mended his relationship with
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Cernovich and matured as a person.
Account
 "I took things too far," he said. "I wasn't very mature and I wasn't
thinking about the consequences and so I realized that."

"I've been working on the last few months on humbling myself and
restoring relationships," Gionet added. 

Neff said he was not sure what to make of the apology.

Jump to
"Is it genuine? I don't know," he said. "I haven't really spoken to the
Main content
kid in forever. I know there are some good things in him. I know
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that that he's not just a f---ing asshole in a vacuum. There are some
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good things about this kid."
 Most surprisingly, however, Gionet said he no longer associated
with the alt-right.

"Here's the thing," he said. "The definition has changed so much. I

don't know if that describes me anymore."

"Everyone seems to have a different definition of it," Gionet

continued. "To me, it means alternative-right. It means right-
Jump to
leaning, different from neo-conservatism, and there's trolling and
Main content all that. But some of these other people say alt-right means you are
Search
a Nazi or a white supremacist or white nationalist. And I'm like, 'No,
Account
I'm not down with that. I'm not a white nationalist.' So I don't know.
 When people are asking me now, I just say I don't like any labels. I
am not going to subscribe to any labels."

Baked Alaska Baked Alaska

Jump to 'It didn't fulfill the void in my soul like I thought

Main content it would'
Search
Account Gionet's rise in the right-wing universe has certainly brought him a
level of fame and celebrity that he lacked before. But it doesn't
seem to have fulfilled him as a person.
 "When I was a kid all I dreamed about was being famous," he wrote
in an email earlier this year, "but once it happened I realized it
didn't fulfill the void in my soul like I thought it would."

Since the election, Gionet has looked to start making other people
famous. He launched the 907 Agency, a public-relations firm
that specializes in helping clients increase their presence on the
internet. His partner, David Bullock — who, coincidentally, goes by
Jump to
the name "Alaska" — said he works with Gionet about three days a
Main content week.
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"I saw him setting trends on Twitter and he saw me on Kanye West's
Saint Pablo Tour," Bullock said in an email. "We were both making
 waves in different industries so we decided we would be able to
greater maximize results if we pooled our resources."

Gionet said he couldn't yet disclose clients of the agency, saying

only that it included musicians and actors.

Moving forward, Gionet said he does not see himself "as some sort
of intellectual" in politics, but more as an entertainer.

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But he has continued to remain active in the political scene. Most
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recently, Gionet has been making trips to the University of
Account
California, Berkeley, to support the rights of conservatives to speak
on campus.
 The right-wing personality has also started working on a book
titled, "Meme Magic Secrets Revealed."

"I've been a big part of putting together meme armies that helped
win an election, a presidential election," he said. "So many people
asked me about it. … So I decided to write a book about it. This is in
essence like the magicians revealing their secrets. It's me a meme
magician, telling people my story."

Gionet's book is set to be released on July 7, 2017 — or 7/7/17. 

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For Gionet, that's no accident.
 "Seven is God's number and I'm a Christian," he explained. "Seven
is the number of completion in the Bible."

Read next

NOW WATCH: How Baked by Melissa became an empire that

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 Donald Trump Baked Alaska

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