In front YouTuber IShowSpeed has been in the spotlight for its toxicity, Jake Lucky, an eSports commentator and the person responsible for highlighting Speed’s behavior, has also been under public scrutiny. Lucky trying to exonerate a defendant Call of Duty: Warzone Hacker using a polygraph test, was criticized for refusing to share the results, leading people to question the legitimacy of Lucky’s larger digital media brand, Full squad gaming.
The catalyst of the situation happened last month when it was about to happen war zone Pro Damien “ShiftyTV” Spirell has been indicted by a former pro Rasim “Blazt” Ogresevic of using an aimbot during a $100,000 Caldera Challenge tournament on March 8th (as reported by malfunction). Several call of Duty players, including professionals Jordan “HusKerrs” Thomasand a TikTok video editor called Judge Jutey
Enter Jake Lucky, who, after hearing about the hacking allegations, met ShiftyTV in person on April 5th to play on a supervised PC in an attempt to prove that he is a Good war zone player It doesn’t need an aimbot. Lucky and co-host Grady Rains even brought in John Grogan, a polygraph examiner (that was referred to as fraud by the late FBI Polygraph Unit special agent Jack Trimarco) and a TV personality known for appearing on shows like Dr. Phil and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. All these experts should come to an alleged “Hacking Check‘ so ShiftyTV can perform live in front of an audience and maybe prove his innocence.
While Lucky preceded the show with numerous disclaimers about sophisticated hacking methods and the difficulty of truly disproving things, the plan didn’t go well. Lucky and Rains, with ShiftyTV on their neutral PC, paused her show on April 5 just as polygraph examiner Grogan was reviewing the polygraph test results. Viewers privy to Grogan’s sketchy story blasted the chat with questions if the results were even correct. Subsequently, the stream, which was broadcast on YouTube and Twitch, was taken offline and the VODs were deleted. You can’t watch the full broadcast anywhere now. As such, any decision on whether or not ShiftyTV hacked was put on hold because, as Lucky tweeted later in the day, he “didn’t feel comfortable” sharing the test results.
Online discourse exploded, with some reconciling Lucky and Rains for their “Mistake” while others recommended them “research more‘ before you try prove or disprove someone’s innocence. A few even criticized Full Squad Gaming to act like it but not really be journalists.
The whole debacle is weird, especially since Lucky admitted during the April 5 video that hyped ShiftyTV’s performance that there was no way for her to “100% confirm or deny if ShiftyTV is hacking.” He went even further, saying it was “almost impossible to make a definitive decision on gameplay alone.” So they brought Grogan, the supposedly convicted “Polygraph parasite” to test the validity of ShiftyTV with the polygraph. The line between entertainment and serious journalism and research was blurred: The viewers were asked to imagine the participants of the live stream as experts who came with asterisks. But if there is no way to clarify the correctness of ShiftyTV’s behavior, then what are we doing here? And if the test results aren’t shared, how can people trust Full Squad Gaming?
igamesnews has reached out to Jake Lucky, ShiftyTV and John Grogan for comment.