Ex-’Poon Editor Caught in Scandal

Former Lampoon writer Nick B. Sylvester ’04 has been suspended from his post as senior associate editor of The Village Voice, a New York City-based alternative weekly, after acknowledging that he fabricated a Feb. 28 cover story, according to an editor’s note published on the paper’s website Wednesday night.

In the cover story, Sylvester wrote about how New York women are “wising up” to the deceptive male seduction tricks offered in Neil Strauss’ book “The Game.” Now, Sylver stands accused of deception himself.

The Voice withdrew the story, “Do You Wanna Kiss Me?” after the weekly said it discovered that Sylvester made up some of the purported facts in it.

At the center of the fabrication fracas is the concluding anecdote of Sylvester’s article. He described three TV writers as they tried their seduction skills in a New York City bar—a scene that “never happened,” the editor’s note said.

The note said that the Voice has ”removed the article from the Voice website and begun a review of the entire piece.”

An apology from Sylvester himself, in which he explained that the encounter with the three TV writers was made up, was appended to the note.

“The trip and my encounter with [Steve Lookner], DC, and Vali did not happen as I reported, or at all,” Sylvester wrote. “The scene was a composite of specific anecdotes shared to me primarily by the two other parties, DC and Vali; Lookner did not share or take part in these anecdotes either.”

In his cover story, Sylvester referred to the three TV writers as “Steve Lucien, DC, and Vic.”

The original story, which as of last night could still be found cached as a Google search result and excerpted on such sites as theasianplayboy.blogspot.com, described “Lucien” as playing the “Reverse Game.”

Knowing that more women are becoming aware of the pickup ploys men use from Strauss’ book, the TV writer attempted to counter the counter-seduction, according to Sylvester. “Lucien” initiated conversations with women by warning them about men versed in “The Game,” Sylvester wrote.

And then “Lucien” sprung a trap, Sylver wrote. “Like watch, pretend I’m one of those dudes who read the book. Do you wanna kiss me?” he asked the women.

Or so Sylvester wrote.

Neither Voice Managing Editor Doug Simmons nor Sylvester returned repeated phone calls and e-mails requesting comment last night.

Though elusive now, Sylvester was a common sight on campus as a writer and music maven at Harvard. A Classics concentrator and a writer for the Harvard Lampoon—a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine—Sylvester earned bylines in the Boston Phoenix and the online album-reviewing site Pitchforkmedia.com.

Members of the Lampoon did not return repeated phone calls and e-mails requesting comment last night.

A reviewer with a distinctive style, Sylvester was known and read widely in underground music circles. He also co-founded a record company, Beekeeper Records, and invited cult indie band Exploding Hearts to perform at the Spee, an all-male Mt. Auburn Street final club.

“I’ve heard a lot of people had mixed feelings about him,” said Evan L. Hanlon ’08, who said he knew of Sylvester through Pitchfork and friends. “But generally, he was well-received...energetic and eccentric. It just seems like he took a really bad turn,” Hanlon said.

In his story, Sylvester cited “Dolly,” author of cocksanddolls.blogspot.com, as an example of women catching onto males’ “Game”-inspired wiles.

“Dolly” was reached at the e-mail address provided on her blog.

“I can tell you for a fact that nobody contacted me before the Voice piece was written, to verify that my experiences actually happened, or even to ask if they could reprint parts of my blog post,” she wrote in an e-mail yesterday, “That’s pretty sloppy reporting, wouldn’t you say?”

—Staff writer Lulu Zhou can be reached at luluzhou@fas.harvard.edu.