The Gay Teen Hockey Player Blogger Who Wasn’t

The gay sports blog Outsports has detailed its investigation of the gay teen hockey player blog that drew international attention and a loyal community of followers and concluded the blogger was actually a formerly married man in his 40s who appears to have duped the blog’s teen and adult fans.

Outsports’ Jim Buzinski lays out the case that the teen blogger, known as “Mikey,” was actually a man in his late 40s who advertised on gay sex sites, served on his homeowners association, and apparently fell in love  with a blog follower.  The blog follower, who had off-blog conversations with the blogger, helped unravel the mystery of the person who wrote about his life as a skilled hockey player who was struggling with being a teen in the closet.

The attention “Mikey” originally got from Outsports resulted in other media picking up the story.  “Mikey” was featured in a profile on 365Gay, the blog connected to the LOGO network. He was also interviewed for the podcast Ben and Dave’s Six Pack.  Podcaster Dave Rubin told Buzinski after the interview “I actually fully bought it after we spoke.  I told Ben that you could hear the nervousness and although his voice was very deep sometimes that’s just a puberty thing. Ben was a little more skeptical, as were some of our listeners.”

Outsports first revealed the possible hoax in late April which resulted in hundreds of comments from Mikey fans and people who believed they had been duped. There was also some speculation that the hoax was a hoax, and that Mikey was looking for a way to get out of the blogging so he said he was a 40 year old so the blog would end.

This is not the first time that gay blogs have found themselves duped by fake bloggers.  In 2008, Joe Jervis at JoeMyGod found himself embroiled in a mystery when a blog about gay firefighter and his two adopted kids turned out to be a hoax and that the blog was actually written by a middle-aged woman in Canada. In 2005, blog readers were duped into believing the livejournal of Priori Ad Lib, a gay grade school teacher in Canada dying of leukemia who also turned out to be a middle-aged woman.

Buzinski told Mediaite that one of the reasons gay blogs may be so susceptible to hoaxes is that being in the closet, or not being open about being gay, means you are willing to trust someone who says they are struggling with being out.

“The whole nature of the closet is that you can’t talk about it publicly, so when one blogs about being a closeted athlete you accept it for sports reasons,” Buzinski explained in an interview.  “We accept anonymity of gay people all the time.  We believe in anonymity.”

Here’s how Buzinski described the blog when her first wrote about it:

I find myself rooting for Mikey, on and off the ice, and hope he can work through the frustration of being a closeted jock. We have been writing about this for years on Outsports, and it’s people like Mikey who show the importance of people reaching out to each other. Despite him thinking he is being weak for staying closeted, he is dealing with the circumstances he is in, and his writing has the potential to make a difference to others. I hope others in his situation check out his blog and drop him a line.

Buzinski was not alone. In a heartbreaking post on Outsports, an 18-year old gay hockey player talked about why he identified so much with the blogger:

To any gay teens who may be reading this, please do not feel alone. There are young gay athletes out there, and even though Mikey turned out to be false, the people that came together as a result of his blog were real, living people whose feelings were hurt by this ordeal. People like Corey Johnson and Brendan Burke are real, just like you, and these people are real heroes. Perhaps the next gay teen role model will come out of this experience. Regardless, one can only hope that those affected by the fall of Mikey will come to be stronger as a result.

Buzinski said that what is interesting about the alleged hoax is that “Mikey” maintained the persona quite convincingly on the blog, but that it was inconsistencies in private conversations that finally raised questions about his identity.

Buzinski’s partner at Outsports–Cyd Zeigler–told Mediaite in an email that despite the perception of the hoax, the “Mikey” phenomenon actually had a benefit because it created an entire community of people–many of them gay teens–who met each other because they were fans of “Mikey” and his blog.

“Whether we want to admit it or not, Mikey did do a lot of good. Many young gay people found a community on his Web site. They felt better about themselves because they got to interact with other people who were like them, going through the same tribulations in life. The fact that Mikey was a fraud doesn’t mean that the hundreds of young people who shared with one another are frauds. They are very real people,” Ziegler said in his email, pointing out that people can still come to Outsports and Saved by the blog to be a part of that community.

Looking ahead, both Ziegler and Buzinski said they will be more careful in checking out the identity of people who write for the blog–“Mikey” had contributed stories–and that they will try to do more research before promoting anonymous blogs. But, as Buzinski said, as long as athletes are closeted, there are always going to be anonymous blogs and people who are looking for role models and people who will share their story.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.