• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Rebecca Brightly

  • Blog
  • My Work
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact

Feminism

My Friend Has a Stalker, and You Need to Know His Name

February 25, 2019 ☆ Rebecca Brightly ☆ 5 min read

UPDATE: Added two new social media accounts run by Matthew.

Last month, my friend Bryan sent me this message: “Do you know Messy? Check out her story.”

I went to Messy’s Instagram and saw this:

Screenshot of Instagram story posted by Messy Lin. Shows an image of Matthew Stephenson's face.

“Do not host this guy if he asked,” reads the original message, along with some Chinese at the bottom. “Parkour people plz beware of him. He stole expensive camera, and use other guys [credit card] and so on,” writes Messy in her repost.

I felt my adrenaline spike. I didn’t know the whole story–I don’t read Chinese and didn’t know any parkour people from Taiwan at the time. But I knew this guy.

His name is Matthew Stephenson, and he’s been stalking and harassing my friend Sheep for two and a half years.

I met her about a year ago. She came to a Parkour Visions class at Freeway Park with Coach Ian in the middle of winter. When we partnered to practice handstands, she shook my hand and introduced herself as “Sheep.” I liked her immediately. She had such a positive attitude about parkour. She could do everything I could do, and more.

We connected on Facebook a few days later (where she goes by Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, a character from the book Crime and Punishment). She invited me to train with her the next Friday. Back at Freeway we practiced dive rolls in the wet, muddy grass. We used our bodies as human obstacles to dive over, standing up higher and higher as the other became more confident.

Wall at Freeway Park, Seattle
This wall!

“I bet you can clear the wall,” she said, after some practice. I wasn’t so sure. The wall was made of concrete. “I’ll crouch down the same height as the wall, and you dive over me.”

“What if I hit you?” I said.

“You won’t.” She had total trust and confidence in me, and that made me trust myself. I cleared her, cleared the wall, and she did the same.

“I can’t believe you got me doing dive rolls,” she said afterward. “I hate mud.”

We’ve trained together nearly every week since that day. She and I and several friends organize the Seattle Jumps parkour group. After training we usually eat meals together. Over heaps of food, we share stories of growing up, what we like and don’t like about our work, and our aspirations.

Here’s a picture of us in the summer. Sheep asked me if I wanted to take a weird photo with her, and obviously I said yes!

I don’t remember exactly how I found out Sheep had a stalker. She may have mentioned it in passing, probably not wanting to trouble anyone about it. I do know that I didn’t understand how dangerous he was at first.

In June, that changed.

One weekend while Sheep was away hiking, Matthew made an imposter account of her.

He began friending all of her friends. He joined all the Facebook groups she was a part of and began making posts pretending to be her.

Here’s an example of a post he made in a local parkour group pretending to be Sheep. He wrote: “There’s some actual good spots on top of the actual buildings that are kind of hidden; if you’re interested in scoping them out let me know.”

So he was asking people to message him to scope out “hidden spots” on top of buildings together. What was he trying to do? Would he have said harmful things through private message? Would he have have followed through if someone agreed to meet him? And what would have happened then? There’s no way to know what he intended.

Because Sheep was away, she couldn’t do anything. I contacted the people he had friended and the groups he had joined, asking them to block and report the account. I didn’t want her to have to deal with this. Everyone I contacted reacted quickly as they could, but it still took several days for the ordeal to be over.

This was the first time I personally witnessed the damage he caused. But I knew this wasn’t the first time he’d done this, nor was it the only way he has harassed her over time. I knew it probably wasn’t the worst of it.

After Bryan messaged me about Messy’s Instagram story, we connected with the parkour community in Taiwan to figure out what happened there.

  • He’d stolen expensive cameras from Wenteng Chang at Ninja Taiwan Academy.
  • He’d “borrowed” over 1000 USD from Liao Hung Wei’s (廖宏偉) parkour team FRMP and never returned it.
  • He’d stolen a credit card from another person and bought himself a flight out of the country.

Hung Wei told us he’d traveled to Korea, and that they’d contacted the community there to warn them.

We were all concerned–Sheep especially.

What other harm could he do to the parkour community? Sheep finally decided to share the whole story of her stalking and harassment by Matthew.

It’s the type of story that will make you question reality. None of it really makes sense. What’s wrong with him? Why would he do this? Is it all a terrible game to him? Is it part of some evil master plan?

I’ll tell you the plot twist now, instead of saving it for the end: Matthew is severely mentally ill.

When Sheep first contacted the police over a year ago, they told her Matthew had been in and out of prison and mental institutions for stalking and theft. She learned there were other victims. We don’t know if he’s physically violent, but we do know he enjoys psychologically tormenting people, trying to make them feel afraid and isolated.

Read Sheep’s post here.

I’m not sure where he’ll go next. I imagine he doesn’t have much money. He probably cannot hold down a job with his mental illness. But he’s smart enough to play on people’s sympathies and good will. How far will he go to get what he wants?

While I’m furious at Matthew for causing all this pain to my friends and community, part of me feels sorry for him. He’ll never know what it’s like to connect with others on a deeper level. He may never lead a happy life.

It makes me sad and frustrated that there is no good solution. Our system is not set up to deal with his problems. In the end, we can only protect our own communities from the damage he causes.

Let’s make it harder for Matthew to infiltrate our communities and hurt people.

It’s not much, but if you’ve gotten this far, please consider doing the following:

  1. Block Matthew’s accounts on social media. Facebook: Account 1, Account 2, Account 3 (new account added). LinkedIn: Account 1. Twitter: Account 1, Account 2. Youtube Account 1 (new account added). If you find any new accounts he has opened, please contact me and I’ll update this post.
  2. Share this post and Sheep’s post on social media, and ask your friends to do the same.
  3. DO NOT host Matthew Stephenson or allow him anywhere near your communities.
  4. And lastly, if Matthew has victimized you, please share your story so we can understand the full level of his destructiveness.

If you have been stalked and need support, please read Stalking: A Handbook for Victims (free PDF) from the Stalking Resource Center, and remember you are never to blame for your stalker’s behavior.

Filed Under: Feminism

Men, Here’s Why Women Don’t Appreciate Your Advice

March 16, 2018 ☆ Rebecca Brightly ☆ 4 min read

“Everyone do two cartwheels. Try to stay on the line in the turf,” said the coach in my freerunning class. Freerunning involves a lot of going upside down while your feet leave the ground. We practice on soft surfaces in the gym before trying flips outdoors on the concrete.

Third in the queue, I did my two cartwheels, one on my right side and one on my left.

“You’re tilted off center for some reason.”

“Hm?” I glanced at the man who had spoken. He had finished his cartwheels just before me. I didn’t recognize him.

“Oh, I just noticed you were tilted off center for some reason,” he repeated with a kind of half-chuckle, as though it was a funny thing, or he was embarrassed to tell me.

Blank look. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. The second one was my off side.”

It took me a moment to figure out what he was trying to do because I’d literally never seen this man before. He was giving me feedback.

[Read more…] about Men, Here’s Why Women Don’t Appreciate Your Advice

Filed Under: Feminism, Movement & Fitness

25 Ways to Be Less Sexist In Your Dancing

November 26, 2013 ☆ Rebecca Brightly ☆ 4 min read

Get ready for my most fun blog post ever!

Here’s the deal: No one wants to be sexist. Well, maybe some people do, but we don’t respect those people. And we sure don’t love having those people in our dance community.

So yeah, we don’t want to cling to false gender stereotypes to justify discrimination. No one really wants to use their gender’s status to dominate others. We don’t mean to be sexist!

But intent does not equate to impact.

Or as they say, “Actions speak louder than words, thoughts, and intentions.” I added that last part, but it’s pretty true, eh? As much as I want to change minds, actions are still the most important thing.

Anyhow, this is fabulous news! Why? Because:

It’s much easier to change your behavior than control your thoughts.

action by jonotakesphotos flickr

Today’s post gives 25 possible answers to the question, “How the hell do we act less sexist?” [Read more…] about 25 Ways to Be Less Sexist In Your Dancing

Filed Under: Dance World Takeover, Feminism, Lindy Hop Culture

Why Men Don’t Understand Sexism In Partner Dancing

September 4, 2013 ☆ Rebecca Brightly ☆ 6 min read

confused-man-by-david-goehring-flickrSome of the men responding to my articles mentioning sexism perplex me.

These men outright deny that sexism exists, or that it’s a problem. I admit I have trouble understanding why anyone would take that stance.

I talked with my partner. He’s good at explaining what it’s like to be a man in partner dancing. He’s also a person of color, so he has insight into that experience as well.

Together, we discovered some sticking points that make it harder for men to unravel the puzzle of sexism.

I failed to see these as sticking points because I experience life as a woman. To me, these are so foundational they don’t need to be said. That makes it more difficult for me to explain the sexism I experience in the dance community.

First, let’s define sexism as it relates to partner dancing. [Read more…] about Why Men Don’t Understand Sexism In Partner Dancing

Filed Under: Dance World Takeover, Feminism, Lindy Hop Culture

Solving Sexism In the Lindy Hop Community

July 17, 2013 ☆ Rebecca Brightly ☆ 6 min read

Note: This post is a detour from my planned 3-post series I began in my previous post.

Tired of sexism in the lindy hop community? Me too! Let’s do something about it.

sexism by uppityrib flickr

Lately there’s been a lot of talk about sexism on lindy hop blogs and Facebook. This is very encouraging. Change is a-brewin’, isn’t it? And women must continue working at the forefront to make it happen.

In my last article, almost as a footnote I explained that sexism is the source of our erroneous understanding of connection. Today I want to go much, much further than that.

I’m assuming we all understand what’s wrong with sexism. This whole post is devoted to discussing solutions for the lindy hop community. Let’s move the discourse forward! I’ll be happy to read your ideas in the comments.

I’ve seen three main suggestions on how to address sexism in the lindy hop community: [Read more…] about Solving Sexism In the Lindy Hop Community

Filed Under: Connection, Dance World Takeover, Feminism

Primary Sidebar

Dance World Takeover

Categories

Beginners
Competition
Connection
Etiquette
Improving Your Dancing
Interviews
Lindy Hop Culture
Music & Musicality
Rejection
Style & Creativity
Videos

Books & PDF Courses

 

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Why I Stopped Dancing, and Why I Like Parkour Better November 1, 2019
  • A Celebration of Two Years Training Parkour September 10, 2019
  • Infinite Opportunities Lost June 20, 2019
  • After Six Years, I’ve Finally Redesigned My Website June 3, 2019
  • Exercise Doesn’t Have to Hurt, and Other Things I Learned the Hard Way February 26, 2019

Let’s keep in touch!

Get updates on my latest work by joining The Pulse, my monthly-ish newsletter on fitness, culture, and everything that moves us. Over 2,000 of your closest friends already subscribe!

Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • My Work
  • Newsletter
  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Contact

Copyright © 2019-20 Rebecca Brightly ☆ Dance Fearless