Joey Dauben, nutbar, profiled

Really, Dallas Observer? You had THIS slow of a week? Alt-media becoming tabloidy in a bad sense.

This Joey Dauben profile does have nuggets of truth. Dauben, without admitting civil guilt, admits he was cybersquatting on misspelled URLs, and that there were deep pockets backing him up.

(That said, per other lies Dauben has told in his pre-incarceration career, none of those pockets were likely that deep, or, if they were, they were only occasionally deep when their own griftings hit oil instead of dry wells.)

Oh, and here's a great one, given that Mr. Dauben is nowhere near gay-friendly:

And once, during an ill-fated Congressional bid, Dauben offered to take supporters on a date to the Galaxy Drive-In for a $25 donation. ("It was 98 percent gay men who responded to the ad," he says.)

They probably backed off again, and quickly.

Here's another truth:

"I love him to death, I feel like he could've been a son of mine," (Ellis County Press publisher Charlie) Hatfield says. "He used to know how to do it, but he chose to go another path." He calls Dauben's current work "libelous trash."

Of course, both of them are wingnuts, and ECP at least is borderline racist.

That said, per page 5 of the story, I seriously doubt Dauben will shut down his papers if a tenuous connection to the Amber Hagerman disappearance doesn't pan out.

(Update, Oct. 24, 2021: As for finding Amber Hagerman's killer? Hell, Dauben couldn't find Amber Guyger if she were still in Botham Jean's apartment with Jim Schutze claiming she was innocent. As of this year, it's been 25 years, and since Arlington PD has said it has DNA evidence, it's clear Dauben had no such identification. It would also be both disgusting, and typical of Dauben, if he preyed on hopes of any Hagerman family members and relatives.)

For people who don't know Dauben, this also is true:

"I don't personally feel like he's looking out for the city as much as he's basically trying to sell his wares," says Palmer City Administrator Doug Young, another man who turns up frequently on Dauben's site.

Young says he tried correcting Dauben when he got things wrong the first few years, but quickly learned it wasn't much use. "Whatever I say, Joey tends to twist to fit his own needs," Young says. "He prints what he wants, he handles what he wants. I'm not gonna try to post a correction."

From my own experience, I know that Dauben's never let the truth stand in the way of a slanted story.

Finally, in his run for mayor of little-bitty Palmer, Texas, his paranoia and megalomania meet:

As the polls near closing time, Dauben's team spills out of a pair of cars and joins him in the street. Dauben leans in and whispers that they're carrying "protection" around town. Asked what kind of danger they're worried about, he says, "Hits out on my life." But he isn't too concerned. "I don't think they're willing to do that and vindicate everything I've ever done," he says.

Turns out Dauben had more subscribers to his Palmer "newspaper" than he got votes.

And, sadly, I Facebook-friended him on tenuous hopes of getting back to Dallas.

Update, Jan. 18, 2020: Weirdly, per the new picture above, replacing a link bust, I didn't realize that D Magazine, with piece written by Mike Orren of then-independent Pegasus News, had also fellated Dauben.

Update, March 16, 2013: I had a new light bulb pop on tonight. Joey Dauben reminds me of a slightly less mature James O'Keefe of Breitbart fame, detailed here in all his sordidness. 

Update 2, July 19, 2017: How did Dauben know that a mayor of tiny little Henderson County burg Seven Points, way away from Ellis County, was gay unless Dauben has a gay grapevine or good gay gaydar?

And, why did you feel compelled to say "I'm not gay"? Even as, in the original Observer piece, you said that 98 percent of responses to a "date Joey" ad were from gay men? Gaydar isn't everything but it is sometimes something. (A gay grapevine is even more "something.")

And why does David Webb, writing for the Dallas Voice and other gay mags, continue to insist you're not gay, Joey? Is it image protection?

Joey, you're in prison because of repression and denial, IMO.

++

Update, Aug. 22, 2021: Besides "Sunflower" and his other groupies who trailed him, at the Ellis County Observer, Dauben had as one of his flunkies a guy named Ali Akbar, who also allegedly was working on the Texas effort for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Today, you know him as "Stop the Steal" thief Ali Alexander. Dauben, per this piece, back then thought Akbar (already then a convicted felon) was shady as shit, claiming that Akbar/Alexander had talked back then of ways to rig an elelection. And, if Joey Dauben thought that ...

 

Update, April 17, 2023: Akbar/Alexander now accused of soliciting "dick pics" from followers of Nick Fuentes. Says he's been "battling" same-sex attraction. Uses "so gay" as a slur. Statement, via Twitter, claims he's done nothing illegal. Other than possibly breaking the law if any of these were of minors (and hence highly illegal), sounds like he needs to stop battling and start accepting being bisexual. Plus, it's all about the money. Milo Yiannopoulos (THAT Milo) ratted on him after he and Fuentes cut him out of a "potentially lucrative" position with Kanye West's presidential run. (Was this 2020, or is he looking at another in 2024? YE gads.) And, rats like Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to dissociate from both.