The “Free Speech Week” Milo Yiannopoulos planned in cooperation with students at Berkeley fizzled into nothing, hampered by a toxic cocktail of red tape and poor planning. Yiannopoulos, shrewd and shameless promoter of his own brand, was clearly counting on his star power to carry at least a little weight, though it seems his meteoric rise to notoriety ended some time ago.

But there’s a serious lesson to be learned in his ascension to whatever level of fame he’s managed to earn. Eli Lake of Bloomberg set out to explain “Why Conservatives on Campus Love Milo Yiannopoulos,” in an article published Wednesday that sought input from students at Berkeley.