In the hierarchy of right-wing digital media companies, The Blaze has long held an august position as one of the first, and one of the longest-surviving, institutions. Founded by Glenn Beck in 2010, the entity represented the first generation of anti-corporate balkanized conservative-meets-alt-right politics-as-lifestyle shops, all built around a single influencer (before that term became painfully ubiquitous). Insta-famous from the success of his eponymous television show on HLN and Fox, Beck became the Bill Simmons of the right—a trailblazing one-man mediaco who served as a forebear to the Bannons and Rogans and Shapiros of the world, and the flourishing ideological empire that Bari Weiss and Nellie Bowles are building in Los Angeles.