Movies

Why Can’t We Stop Watching Scammer Stories?

BBG News

At the start of her Netflix series titled “Apple Cider Vinegar,” the lead actress Kaitlyn Dever addresses the audience by breaking the traditional storytelling barrier. Looking directly into the camera, she narrates in third person about the real-life character she’s representing. She states, “This is a tale inspired by deception, with certain names altered to shield those who were not at fault.” She clarifies that Belle Gibson did not receive payment for the retelling of her narrative. Unexpectedly, Dever then adopts the persona of Belle Gibson once more, expressing her displeasure about being excluded from the project bluntly with a profanity: “Jerkoffs.

During the Instagram boom in the early 2010s, Belle Gibson, an Australian wellness influencer, gained a massive following. This popularity led to favorable media attention at home and abroad, as well as a lucrative book deal. Presenting herself as a young, attractive, and seemingly indestructible single mother who claimed to be combating terminal brain cancer through healthy eating and alternative medicine, she profited from her loyal followers via an app called the Whole Pantry. However, it was later revealed that Gibson had never been diagnosed with cancer. Netflix was keen on sharing her intriguing story while making it clear that unlike other scammers who have captivated public interest, Gibson did not receive compensation for this retelling.

Apple Cider Vinegar, currently popular amidst a surge of questionable content, stands in stark contrast to two genuinely sick women seeking miracle cancer remedies who are within Gibson’s circle. In January, ABC News aired a docuseries titled Scamanda, focusing on another cancer charlatan, and Freeform debuted Scam Goddess, a series that highlights a different scam artist in each episode. Additionally, Kari Ferrell, a flamboyant con artist once called the Hipster Grifter by the late-2000s New York media, reappears with her memoir titled You’ll Never Believe Me.

Reflecting on the infamous 2018 Summer of Scandals marked by the Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey saga, we find ourselves in a chilling continuation that some might call the Winter of Deceit. However, this label doesn’t fully capture the essence of the ongoing phenomenon, which I like to call the Persistent Period of Trickery. In 2023, as per the latest FTC data, Americans collectively lost a staggering $10 billion to scams – an all-time high. With AI, deepfakes, crypto, and other technological advancements paving the way for innovative means of deceit, and a President who agreed to pay $25 million to students who accused Trump University of fraud starting his second term, it’s clear that swindling is no longer a fleeting trend; it’s become the norm.

In essence, while it’s often assumed that the masterminds behind the scams popular in the 2020s are influential figures like politicians or business magnates, it’s actually ordinary women who capture our interest. These women, who were once everyday people, have crafted an extraordinary persona for themselves within a fabricated reality. This makes them a distorted reflection for a true-crime audience, which is predominantly female, and serves as a screen onto which we project both our fears about trusting other women and our own desires to achieve by any means necessary. The most compelling scammer narratives manage to encapsulate the ambiguity we feel towards these characters, shedding light on our fascination with them. On the other hand, productions like “Apple Cider Vinegar,” which lack coherence in tone, merely reflect our unease without offering much insight into it.

Just like any intriguing cultural occurrence, the Summer of Scam sparked numerous articles aimed at understanding why people are drawn to scams. Some theories suggested that women, in particular, consume true crime content to gain knowledge that can help them avoid falling victim, while others pointed to schadenfreude as a factor, either towards the con artist or their unsympathetic victims. A therapist interviewed by British Glamour proposed an interesting perspective: “We find both sides of these stories relatable because there’s a little bit of the scammer and a little bit of the scammed in each of us.” In an interview with The New York Times, a producer of the true-crime convention CrimeCon connected this trend to another popular topic, conspiracy theories: “These stories make us question, ‘What if everything isn’t as it appears?’

It’s likely that there’s an element of truth in each theory. As someone who once grew weary of the true-crime genre, yet finds themselves drawn to scam stories, I believe there’s something more intriguing at play here. If true crime is often seen as a grim and sensational portrayal of real-life tragedies such as murders, kidnappings, and abuse, then the scam subgenre might offer a somewhat healthier escape—like Diet Coke compared to the unhealthy high of a serial-killer addiction. Scammers, especially female ones, may seem less likely to stir up distress in those who consume these stories, given the prevalence of violent criminals in traditional true crime narratives. The “Scam Goddess” podcast, from which the Freeform series was adapted, positions itself as “true crime, but without all the death.” Both versions are hosted by a comedian, Laci Mosley.

While it’s not true that all scam narratives are harmless or provide identical enjoyment. One of the less harmful types is the social scammer, such as characters like Ferrell and Delvey, who were featured in a popular New York magazine article that inspired Shonda Rhimes’ Netflix series “Inventing Anna”. These individuals insinuate themselves into exclusive circles and exploit their shallow associates. It can be challenging to feel sympathy for the white-American trust fund hookups that Ferrell, a Korean American man, allegedly swindled (for relatively minor amounts), as they were often enamored by his attraction as an Asian woman. According to Business Insider, Netflix paid Delvey $320,000 for its docudrama. The majority of her victims, with some exceptions that caused significant damage to their lives, were wealthy jet-setters and high-end businesses. Since the stakes are relatively low in these instances, the stories are more akin to juicy gossip than tales of serious crime.

A less overt yet equally intriguing category, particularly from a psychological standpoint, consists of individuals labeled as spiritual leaders. Series such as HBO’s Breath of Fire, Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, and Freeform’s The Deep End shed light on women who have amassed wealth by exploiting followers seeking a messiah or wise guide to provide purpose in their lives. Regrettably, these tales frequently conclude in sorrowful events. The boundary between deceit, desperation, and delusion, which vary for each subject, is often thin for individuals occupying such positions. The misdeeds of the Breath of Fire subject Guru Jagat were less severe compared to her predatory male counterparts in the questionable realm of kundalini yoga. The troubled woman who assumed the title Mother God perished due to her self-devised neo-hippie health regimen; her emaciated body turned blue from ingesting colloidal silver.

If these figures offered an avenue to evade the void of the physical world, a different group of questionable individuals – business opportunists – have presented themselves as positive influencers within this realm. Amazon’s series, LuLaRich, focuses on DeAnne Stidham and her husband Mark, who ran LuLaRoe, a multilevel marketing company that promised stay-at-home moms an additional income source to help their families. However, similar to many MLMs, LuLaRoe left numerous women financially worse off than before they joined. Elizabeth Holmes, one of the most infamous scammers in recent history, managed to gather over $700 million for the development of a revolutionary blood-test technology that she never truly invented. Her journey from rise to fall has been chronicled through multiple podcasts like “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” by John Carreyrou, documentaries such as Alex Gibney’s HBO doc “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” the podcast “The Dropout,” and the Hulu drama “The Dropout.

As a movie reviewer, I find it challenging to chuckle at the misfortune of investors like Tim Draper, corporations such as Walgreens, and billionaires including Rupert Murdoch who backed Theranos without proper checks. However, the true victims deserving our empathy are those patients who suffered from the device’s inaccuracies – they were more than just business casualties; they were medical victims deceived by a sham. It’s almost impossible to turn these heartbreaking tales into light-hearted entertainment.

Take, for instance, the case of Scamanda‘s Amanda Riley, who raised funds for care she didn’t require, or Peacock’s 2024 docuseries Anatomy of Lies, which exposes Elisabeth Finch, a former Grey’s Anatomy writer, whose fabricated cancer diagnosis and deception built her career. Yet, even darker is the story of Belle Gibson, who exploited cancer fraud as a profitable origin story and offered false hope – along with a potentially lethal alternative to grueling treatments like chemotherapy and amputation – to genuine cancer patients. No wonder it’s tough for Apple Cider Vinegar to strike a balance between gravity and schadenfreude.

In the book “You’ll Never Believe Me”, Ferrell pens, “I excel with words, they’ve led me into trouble and helped me escape it too.” Known for slipping risqué messages on napkins to party-goers, who rushed to settle their bar tabs and escort her to their apartments, where she could snatch wallets or phones, Ferrell was a modern-day Scheherezade, weaving tales each night to survive the following day. Given her ability to captivate and amuse as she recounts her escapades, it’s not so unexpected that she emerges as an astute and engaging storyteller.

I’ve always found that con artists are masterful narrative weavers, spinning tales more captivating than the truth itself. The ones who manage to pull off criminal feats worthy of a true-crime drama possess an allure, depth, and psychological intrigue that surpasses even notorious figures like Jeffrey Dahmer, whose face is now overexposed in the public eye. It’s this magnetic charm that draws not only their victims but also those who hear about their exploits through various mediums such as television, podcasts, and memoirs.

Adapting a con artist’s story isn’t merely about repeating their enticing lies; it requires digging deep to uncover the underlying metanarrative that makes their tale worth retelling. The challenge is to transform these deceptive narratives into something meaningful and compelling, a task that demands careful examination and interpretation.

In a paper published this autumn in the Journal of Gender Studies, Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn Claire Higgins analyze the series The Dropout and Inventing Anna to discuss how our interest in female con artists has a distinct gender angle. Since the girlboss icon of the early 2010s, shaped by pop feminism, has crumbled, they suggest that the con artist figure is seen with mixed feelings because she knows how to exploit the biased rules of the game for her own gain. Unlike shows like Apple Cider Vinegar and Inventing Anna, which mainly entertain us with shocking displays of audacity, The Dropout and You’ll Never Believe Me delve into the intricate ways that the protagonists’ gender influenced their scams and how they were perceived by the public.

In every genuine crime tale, the pursuit of justice lies at its core. For instances like female scammers, this quest becomes complex: What does justice entail for a woman who, in her pursuit of more wealth, status, or recognition than she could honestly earn, causes harm to others?

Gibson, who confessed in 2015 that she hadn’t been ill, lost her reputation, lifestyle, and career, but not her freedom. Holmes’ prison sentence, which has been reduced twice, concludes in August 2032. Delvey and Ferrell served shorter terms in prison. Today, both are leveraging their infamy: While the fake heiress was eliminated early in ‘Dancing with the Stars’, the former Hipster Grifter is on a path to redemption that also includes writing a memoir and founding a production company focused on telling the stories of women of color.

The manner in which we respond to these outcomes – be it finding satisfaction in the scammers’ punishment or rooting for their rehabilitation, and whether our responses differ based on the extent of harm they caused – reveals as much about us as it does about the women we feel affectionate towards, disdainful towards, or both. As Ferrell points out, men often exploit others with impunity, even going on to earn substantial sums and speak at high-profile business conferences. This raises a question: why do they receive such opportunities, when many women, including myself, do not? It’s a question worth pondering, as Ferrell does, and attempting to find an answer.

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2025-02-07 00:07

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