The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Matt Hickey: Anti-#GamerGate Writer Allegedly Tricked Teens in Porn Scam

Posted on | June 11, 2016 | 39 Comments

 

Matt Hickey is a Seattle-based writer who was once an editor for TechCrunch and Gizmodo, and has spent the past three years as a writer for Forbes where, among other things, he threw a journalistic tantrum because Microsoft hired dancers for a party at a gaming conference.

Just hours after hosting its annual “Women in Gaming” luncheon at the 2016 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft MSFT -0.27% threw a party at a local club that featured half-naked dancing girls on raised platforms. Understandably, this is problematic for the maker of the Xbox.
The games industry has been under scrutiny lately as more and more women gamers have been calling it out on blatant sexism. New research show that the majority of video game players may well be women, yet the games themselves are still seemingly targeted at teenage boys. Female characters — especially in fantasy games — are traditionally clothed in next-to-nothing attire while the male characters are generally covered completely.
That has been changing recently, which is a good thing. 2013’s Rise of the Tomb Raider features its headline character Lara Croft in a sensible jacket and khakis outfit, a far different outfit from the revealing tank-top and short-shorts she was known for.
This is the way the industry should be going, and not just for moral reasons; many women are turned off by the prevalent sexism and thus don’t game.

Oh, “women are turned off by the prevalent sexism”? This is the classic Anita Sarkeesian/Randi Lee Harper anti-#GamerGate feminist propaganda that has been fraudulently foisted on the videogame industry which (a) employs a lot of men, and (b) makes billions of dollars a year. This is all just a scam to impose “diversity” quotas on a successful industry, and also to get giant tech companies to pay protection money to clever hustlers like Sarkeesian who, in return for contributions to their non-profit groups, will vouch for the feminist bona fides of these hugely profitable corporations. The whole “Women in Gaming” hustle is a variation of the shakedown racket Jesse Jackson used to run against banks and other Wall Street companies: “Give us money, because it would be a terrible thing if somebody sued you for discrimination,” basically.

The #GamerGate “ethics in journalism” angle began with accusations that Nathan Grayson, a writer for Gawker-owned videogame review site Kotaku, provided free publicity to Zoe Quinn, with whom he was allegedly involved. Beginning with the Grayson/Quinn scandal in August 2014, #GamerGate became a wide-ranging war against the pernicious influence of so-called “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who were seen as crybaby enforcers of politically correctness in the videogame community.

Matt Hickey sided with the SJWs and in October 2014, when his fellow SJW Chris Plante proclaimed “Gamergate Is Dead” — “a hate group . . . associated with bigotry and cruelty” — Hickey rushed to praise Plante and declared: “Don’t be a part of Gamergate, people. It’s a bad gang.”

 

Meanwhile, an online character named “Deja Stwalley” was soliciting teenage girls in Seattle who wanted to become porn performers, arranging for them to have sexual trysts with her photographer friend:

In 2013, Deja Stwalley friended 19-year-old Allysia Bishop on Facebook. Stwalley sold Bishop the same pitch she gave Shearer, and Bishop agreed to a shoot with Matt. Bishop says that after working out the details of the audition shoot with Stwalley, she took a cab to Matt’s apartment on Capitol Hill.
“He had a little checklist of things I was comfortable doing in the future, like are you fine with bondage, are you fine with whatever,” she tells me over the phone. Bishop also remembers Matt making vodka screwdrivers. “He checked a little checklist off and said fine, all right we’ll take some pictures. All the while, I was drinking. He was just making me more drinks and more drinks.”
Bishop says she drank so much that she nearly blacked out. And that’s when she claims that Matt said they had to have sex. “He was like, ‘Well, we have to have sex, because if we don’t then how am I going to know you’re for real and you’ll actually be able to do this in the industry? So you have to prove to me you’re not going to bail out.'”
Bishop says that she never would have had sex with Matt if she didn’t think it was for the audition. She wasn’t attracted to him. Bishop left Matt’s apartment upset but didn’t quite understand why. All she knew was that she felt violated.
That same day, Bishop slit her wrists in a bathtub. . . .

According to reporter Sydney Brownstone, “Deja Stwalley” and her photographer buddy Matt were the same person, Matt Hickey, who allegedly scammed at least three young women into having sex with him under the false pretense of auditioning them as porn performers.

 

It turns out that there is a real Deja Stwalley who “went to middle school with Matt Hickey in Olympia,” and who said of her childhood acquaintance with Hickey: “He had a weirdo crush on me.”

Predictably, when contacted for comment, Matt Hickey made a reference to “my lawyer,” and then shut down his Twitter account. Maybe he could be in a bathtub slitting his wrists, for all we know.

Stories like this almost make it seem as though we need a movement that will call attention to ethics in journalism, or something.

 

Comments

39 Responses to “Matt Hickey: Anti-#GamerGate Writer Allegedly Tricked Teens in Porn Scam”

  1. Steve Skubinna
    June 11th, 2016 @ 9:48 am

    Another thing SJWs always do is deflect. They never talk about the real issues because doing so will make them look bad. They strive to put you on the defensive so they don’t have to defend their own behavior.

    So whatever it is an SJW tells you is the “real problem” to be addressed, ignore it. Look around and behind it. Their accusations are a smoke screen.

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 11th, 2016 @ 1:14 pm

    #FreeStacy

    Figures an ally of Anita Sarkeesian is trolling for girls under false pretenses.

    http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/666/056/67f.jpg

  3. Steve White
    June 11th, 2016 @ 2:14 pm

    According to Mr. Hickey, women are turned off by the prevalent sexism in gaming, even though now, perhaps, a majority of women are gamers.

    The guy should be replacing Fox Butterfield as a headline writer. Once he gets through the judicial system about the alleged pron issues, that is…

  4. Steve White
    June 11th, 2016 @ 2:15 pm

    And I suspect someone should be archiving everything Mr. Hickey ever wrote or tweeted…

  5. RS
    June 11th, 2016 @ 3:42 pm

    From the link with the underlying story:

    But the justice system has a limited ability—or willingness—to prosecute cases where consent was obtained under false pretenses.

    Most of us would wonder why that is. Is it not rape? Is it not worthy of prosecution? The answer is quite simple: Women’s groups have consistently opposed criminal penalties for obtaining sex under false pretenses because a rather substantial number of the perpetrators are women, who do so in order to trap men by getting pregnant and forcing them to pay child support, by representing they are on birth control or sterile. The government goes along, because it likes child support. A portion of every child support payment goes to HHS and state agencies.

  6. Joe Joe
    June 11th, 2016 @ 5:23 pm

    Feminist causes: a great cover for a rapist.

  7. Finrod Felagund
    June 11th, 2016 @ 5:30 pm

    The old rule, proven again: if you want to know what leftists are up to. look at what they’re accusing people of.

  8. Finrod Felagund
    June 11th, 2016 @ 5:32 pm

    Also, hooray that Kotaku is going down in flames with Gawker.

  9. Joseph Shmeau
    June 11th, 2016 @ 5:49 pm

    Kotaku! I forgot about that. Good news, good news …

  10. Kirby McCain
    June 11th, 2016 @ 6:02 pm

    So while these rancid feminists piss and moan about supposed sexual stereotypes in gaming they’re out in Colorado Springs raising hell because they want to go topless in public. Why should anyone ever take them seriously?

  11. Joe Joe
    June 11th, 2016 @ 6:24 pm

    +1000

    And then there’s this:
    Witches organize ‘mass hex’ for Stanford rapist Brock Turner — to make him impotent
    http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/27807/

  12. no
    June 11th, 2016 @ 6:39 pm

    Just a clarification — a majority of gamers are not women. Women make up a VERY small portion of gamers, until you start to include facebook “games”. Then they become about 50% of gamers.

  13. no
    June 11th, 2016 @ 6:41 pm

    Sadly, no they’re not, along with a number of other Gawker properties, Kotaku was just bought by Ziff Davis.

  14. DeadMessenger
    June 11th, 2016 @ 6:43 pm

    Erick Erickson: “The use of force is standard operating procedure for philosophies that lack the moral and logical fortitude to stand on their own.”

  15. RKae
    June 11th, 2016 @ 7:01 pm

    Sort of reminds me of the old line (was it by Dorothy Parker?) “No one goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.”

  16. Joe Joe
    June 11th, 2016 @ 7:47 pm

    Excellent point.

  17. Steve Skubinna
    June 11th, 2016 @ 7:55 pm

    Hmmm… if that were the case, and if what we believe about progressivism is true, then we would expect to see them employing violence against their political opponents…

  18. bet0001970
    June 11th, 2016 @ 9:49 pm

    Anita Sarkeesian hired a convicted child sex offender to run her video game channel…ooops.

  19. bet0001970
    June 11th, 2016 @ 10:01 pm

    There are so many pedophiles and pedo apologists in the SJW community. It’s the club for deviants.

  20. bet0001970
    June 11th, 2016 @ 10:04 pm

    Oh we are. And have. I’m pretty sure that shit got scooped up the second this was discovered. We’re pretty good at this.

  21. bet0001970
    June 11th, 2016 @ 10:07 pm

    We are celebrating Gawker’s demise. Ben Kuchera is begging on Twitter. Lulzing so hard.

    http://archive.is/Ry8Wm

  22. Steve White
    June 11th, 2016 @ 10:11 pm

    Fair point.

  23. Dianna Deeley
    June 11th, 2016 @ 11:32 pm

    These women wanted to break into porn? Why?

  24. Finrod Felagund
    June 11th, 2016 @ 11:54 pm

    The old joke about Bally pinball machines is that every single one of them, with the lone exception of Space Invaders (which is very HR Giger), features the female chest in its artwork.

  25. DeadMessenger
    June 12th, 2016 @ 4:05 am

    They use the force of immoral laws and mob action. (At the moment.) Ask Christian florists, bakers, photographers and pharmacists. Ask Memories Pizza. And they’re just getting started. It’s only starting with Christians because they’re easy marks.

    There was that preacher in KY who had (past tense) a prison ministry for years, until the state told him he had to sign an agreement saying that he wouldn’t preach that LGBTwhatever is a sin. He couldn’t do that, so they told him he could no longer be a religious (yeah, they actually used that word) volunteer.

  26. DeadMessenger
    June 12th, 2016 @ 4:11 am

    I wish Janis would be like Richard and become a Fugitive.

  27. DeadMessenger
    June 12th, 2016 @ 4:13 am

    All he’d have to do is look at a picture of the average feminist, and that would do it. No hex required.

  28. DeadMessenger
    June 12th, 2016 @ 4:17 am

    Parents didn’t teach them the way they should go.

  29. DeadMessenger
    June 12th, 2016 @ 4:18 am

    Sort of like the Hair Club for Men, but only for back hair.

  30. RS
    June 12th, 2016 @ 6:30 am

    I think that line was Yogi Berra. (Number 5)

  31. Steve Skubinna
    June 12th, 2016 @ 9:12 am

    Actually, I was thinking of the violence at Trump rallies. Which is always by anti-Trump protestors.

    Odd that Trump is Hitler, and yet it’s his supporters that are getting beaten up by the tolerance and diversity brigade.

    They’re feeling emboldened enough to go beyond legal and regulatory harassment.

  32. Steve Skubinna
    June 12th, 2016 @ 9:34 am

    Back when the left won the gay marriage fight I wondered what would be the next sexual “civil rights” case – bestiality or pedophilia?

    We have our answer. They’ve been working subtly to advance it, and getting less and less subtle. So far they overreach whenever they try to mainstream it, as in the case last year of Slate publishing their sympathetic profile of a kiddy diddler. They grossly underestimated the number of bigoted haters out there who won’t put up with these predators.

    But make no mistake, that’s what the transgendered bathroom fight is really about. Nobody cares if an actual transgendered person uses whatever bathroom he, she, or zir identifies with. They’ve been doing it all along and it’s gone under the radar because they’re trying to blend in. Besides, the number of actual transgenders is so small it’s statistically irrelevant. Nope, the bathroom thing is about letting sexual predators lurk in the stalls and tarring anybody who objects as a bigot beyond the pale of civilized society.

  33. DeadMessenger
    June 12th, 2016 @ 1:58 pm

    With a wink and a nod from the mayors in those cities, no less. Baltimore and Ferguson wannabes, I suppose.

  34. Joe Joe
    June 12th, 2016 @ 3:19 pm

    😀

  35. Daniel Freeman
    June 12th, 2016 @ 3:30 pm
  36. Rich Vail
    June 12th, 2016 @ 3:34 pm

    if you want to have “Janis” banned, copy the timestamp shortcut on her “post”.
    Click on her name. in the upper right corner will be a flag. You can then follow the directions to past the spam post and Disqus will eventually ban her account. Takes 2-3 verifiable reports for them to ban someone.

  37. Finrod Felagund
    June 12th, 2016 @ 9:08 pm

    Yet it was Trump who offered to bail out anyone who beat up a protester.

  38. Finrod Felagund
    June 12th, 2016 @ 9:13 pm

    I have loathed Ziff-Davis ever since they bought and folded Creative Computing, which was only the first ever computer magazine, and hugely influential in its day.

  39. News of the Week (June 13th, 2016) | The Political Hat
    June 13th, 2016 @ 12:57 pm

    […] Matt Hickey: Anti-#GamerGate Writer Allegedly Tricked Teens in Porn Scam Matt Hickey is a Seattle-based writer who was once an editor for TechCrunch and Gizmodo, and has spent the past three years as a writer for Forbes where, among other things, he threw a journalistic tantrum because Microsoft hired dancers for a party at a gaming conference. […]