George Santos, disgraced former congressional representative and professional scammer, was voted out of Congress, and rather than slinking into the shadows, he's doing sit down interviews and allegedly making bank on cameo. Now if you believe him, he says that he's already made more money since being kicked out of Congress than
he ever would have as an elected official. When asked during an interview by ze Way what it would take for him to just go away, he said, stop inviting me to events, But you'll never do that because you want the content. And honestly, he's kind of right. So does crime pay? That's the question that Rachel Delusche Williams asked when we sat down together last year. Rachel was scammed at of thousands of dollars by notorious fake German Heiress and Adelby, and she asks, are we incentivizing scamming
as a culture. Listen to our episode from twenty twenty two and find.
Out she definitely committed so many offenses that harmed your life people. So I think to flattened something like that into this like very frivolous, like fun, glossy slog of a TV show We'll Stop by do Dot.
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. We spend a lot of time on the show talking about lies and the Internet, and I have to say that part of the reason why I personally work on disinformation issues is because of my intense fascination in things that are not true. How do lies function, why do we believe them? Who profits off of them? And how do they shape
our world? So in twenty eighteen, when the story first broke about the fake German heiress Anna Delby, I was of course fascinated. Anna real name Anna Sorokan, had been scamming investors, hotels, even her own friends in pursuit of opening an art foundation and private club called the Anna Delvey Foundation. The club, like the millions of dollars of family money that Anna said that she was supposedly worth,
never materialized. Anna's former friend Rachel Delutch Williams, first introduced the world to Anna after she wrote about their disastrous trip to Marrakesh. Anna initially agreed to pay for the trip, but never managed to put down a working credit card at the pricey villa where they were staying. When hotel staff insisted that somebody put down a functioning credit card, Rachel was pressured into putting the cost of the entire trip sixty two thousand dollars, more than a year of
her salary, on her work and personal credit cards. Now, Anna assured her that she would wire her the money to pay her back, but she never did. In the end, Rachel helped lead police to Anna's whereabouts, which led to Anna's arrest and conviction for one count of attempt at grand larceny, three counts of grand larceny, and four counts of theft of services related to her various scams, but she was found not guilty of the sixty two thousand
dollars Rachel was out for the trip. Last month, Netflix released Inventing Anna, a fictionalized, very sympathetic retelling of her Cohn based on the reporting of Jessica Presler at New York Magazine. Anna's crimes were so flashy and outlandish it was hard not to pay attention, and that, Rachel says, is kind of part of the scam. In her book, My Friend Anna, Rachel writes, I have come to understand
that your attention is an investment. Giving someone your attention is the act of being influenced, whether or not you're aware of it in the moment, and especially in this age of constant simulation, with endless people and stories competing for your clicks, likes, follows, and time. Your attention is valued. It has power, It's worth something. It can even put money in someone's pocket. Be careful where you spend it
and understand the cost. I spoke to Rachel about why our current digital media landscape is presenting a golden age for scammers and what that means for all of us. And this one quick note. We were recording on a noisy day in Brooklyn, so the audio quality might not be what you're used to from this podcast. Why do you think this is? Why do you think we're in this era where people cannot get enough of people who lie and scam and steal and sheet others.
Yeah, it's a good question, and I've certainly asked myself the same one. But I think I have a kind of unique vantage point in that I lived through like a con firsthand, and I know that's sort of how it works. It's sort of this larger than life, flashy illusion, like a magic trick that is meant to grab your attention so that while you're busy sort of puzzling over it, you know, whatever sort of business is going on behind the scenes can can happen without too much or analysis,
I suppose. So it's I think it there's a fascination with with you know, tricksters and with like it is in many ways like like watching a magician at work, and so that people want to want to watch as like a voyeur to understand where this slight of hand occurred, how someone fell for it, and and you know, especially in this age where it is kind of hard with with the Internet and with all of these different media forms coming at us to discern between fact and fiction.
To get to watch something in an arena that seems pretty low stakes because it's built as entertainment. I think it's people enjoy maybe like they don't think about it that hard, but they enjoy getting to see something that that straddles that divide on purpose.
In talking about the Netflix show Inventing Anna you talk, you write really compellingly about this that one of the reasons why the show is kind of dangerous is that it does sort of aim to straddle that line, and each episode starts with this is a completely true story except for the things that are fictionalized, and I think as a viewer you might not really know that, You're like, it can be used as a way to heavily deeply
fictionalize something that actually people actually experience, and I think that could the purposeful straddling of that line of facts and fiction and kind of blending them can be a little bit dangerous because the ftikes do feel low. It just feels like entertainment exactly.
I mean, you've said it in some ways better than I can say it myself, But that's exactly right, and it's kind of disheartening. I mean, I appreciate that, like you're speaking of about this too, and other people you know are certainly paying attention now. But I think part of the reason I chose to continue talking about this, which you know, the story which is well and truly behind me and I would love to like move on
from and not be discussing today. But the reason I'm speaking up is because I see something happening that sets a precedent that I do think is chruck that I do think is dangerous, and I do think it requires viewers to ask questions, probably more so than we can expect a media company who profits from it to do. But the Netflix show Inventing Anna does do this thing where it like sticks that label up as a disclaimer, but it blends, you know, factual information with things that
are completely made up, as it says it does. But it makes viewers go online, look things up, see that some things are true, and then that creates this like foundation of credibility that allows them to think, well that this is true. I believe the narrative that they wove in with you know, this big big budget production and all those like whistles and bells and like how compelling is that. You know, storytelling is really powerful, and I
think that's why it requires a level of responsibility. I think people are apt to believe things that they watch in stories or that they connect to in terms of a narrative more than sometimes dry facts that they hear on the news.
Yeah, you know, you describe this in your book and talking about the way that Anna's crimes have been glamorized, in part by places like Netflix, that you see it as a big picture problem is that sort of what you were referring to, Like, that's sort of the big picture problem that you're describing.
Yeah, that I think specifically, I have become very mindful of the ways that our attention can be commodified. So when Anna was released from prison the first time before she was detained by ICE, I was asked to do a bunch of media appearances commenting on her release, and I declined because I was like, why, you know, why would I do that. I've already written the book, it's out,
I've moved on. I have no interest in sort of coming out and speaking or hypothesizing about what somebody may or may not do after jail, like she's cheated her time. Like all we can do is like hope that, you know,
God's speed, like hope doesn't happen again. But while I was declining things, I saw that she was being given various media place platforms, and that would be fine if she had something productive to say, But it felt as though these different outlets were just giving your space to rationalize her behavior, to continue peddling belief in this, you know, and fictional in my mind, like this fictional intention, you know,
like I was really going to do it. I didn't mean to never pay someone back like all of these things that I believed for far too long, and that she's now getting to sell to a broader audience. So as I was watching that, what I realized is our attention to her, our attention to people like this, our attention to things is what gives them influence and power.
So when I say it's a big picture problem, I think what I'm really referring to is the attention economy and the way that we think we're watching something just without stakes, but our viewership in itself is actually something that it does have a monetary value and also a value in terms of our own behavior, our beliefs, and how how we moved through the world.
You write about how Anna will be given these like very convivial interviews where it's clearly the interviewer was like, Wow, this Anna Delby, like can you believe it? And they would have these buzzy headlines, and I guess part of me is like, like, how can you print the words of somebody who lies? If you're a journalist or a reporter, Like somebody asked like, oh, you could try to talk to Anna for this interview, And I was like, why would I why would I want to talk to somebody who lies?
Yeah, I mean I think there's a way to do it. There's actually a sixty minutes to Australia interview was I thought it was. I mean, it's of course still kind of sensationalized around the edges, but at least the viewer had a very firm like framing device in which he you know, it's It's the same way I think the most successful interviews with someone like Donald Trump were where
you have a baseline foundation of truth fiction. You know, some some degree of commonly shared right wrong when it comes to like ethics or reality, and you actually try to hold someone to account. That's interesting. And then I think it's actually like journalism, But I think what I do find puzzling or I understand it, but I think I find it, you know, problematic is the way that so much of our media and our news sources today
are driven by not by quality but traffic. So so so places are incentivized to come up with these clickbait headlines, with these really sensationalized recaps of you know, you know, events that in real life were interesting, but you know, are so much more interesting if you embellish these details. And it was troubling for me because watching like even during the Child the Why, people were reporting on what she was wearing or like you know, ah, she's so audacious,
can you believe? Like, like, yeah, she is, That's what ye know. That's what drew me into the friendship. Friendship too, here's this person you can't quite figure out, Like she's she's wacky, she's really confident. She's doing these these things that kind of break your brain and make you sit there and stare and kind of ask questions. But that's how it works. Like while we're doing that, like no
one's asking where's the money coming from? Like who's are the what's the impact of this person's behavior and mind? Does it matter?
According to BBC News, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request, Netflix reportedly started paying Anna before she had ever even gone to trial. They paid thirty thousand dollars, which went toward paying her lawyer. Then Netflix paid for the rights to adapt Anna's story into the show Inventing Anna. In total, Netflix reportedly paid Anna three hundred and twenty
thousand dollars. Now that money was initially frozen to give her victims a chance to sue, and even though some of her victims did file claims for a portion of those funds, whatever has left over that didn't go to paying the lawyers just goes right to Anna. And what did Anna spend that money on? Designer clothing? You've written about the fact that Netflix paid Anna, you know, it's a little bit of one of those things where she
used the money to pay legal fees. However, I would argue that it's not like it's not like, I mean, they're her legal fees, and so if somebody gives me money and I'm like, oh, I use that money to pay my bills, I feel like it's a bit of a stretch to say that I Am not benefiting from that. But whatever. Do you feel that Netflix is contributing to an ecosystem where lying and scamming can be financially rewarding and financially lucrative.
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, this is like very cut and gi evidence of that because they moved so quickly to option the story that it they ended up paying Anna before her case even went to trial, before she even went to trial, and that's the money that was used initially to pay her criminal the criminal defense layer, whom she chose to pay his his like a initial fees, and then beyond that they they started their writer's room. The day that the trial began, there were Netflix writers
in the courtroom. Her lawyer was representing her and her entertainment dealings at the same time he was representing her in a criminal trial. And I knew that at the time, which is part of why I think I went into
it feeling. I mean, of course, I was also so raw, and I was all so fresh, and I was so emotional way more, you know, I wish I had I had had like a little more distance from everything or a little more composure, but I just felt, frankly, so gaslighted by the fact that I was being accused of using my testimony as content for entertainment quote unquote, because I was writing a book while at the same time I knew that everybody there was doing that, and I
actually wasn't, like, you know, I was left sixty thousand dollars in debt, like I was just finding a way to like heal, to understand, to move forward. So yeah, it was really taxi terraviy, and I do think Netflix certainly not only influenced the criminal justice proceedings, but also gave this person who you know, we can all think
what we want to think. But looking on paper at her past actions, she is a convicted criminal and they have created for her a glamorized version of her crimes, given her a platform, given her an audience, and set her up with a viewership that she can now continue to monopolize like she will continue to make money on the notoriety that she achieved through committing criminal acts.
Let's take a quick break at her back. Scammers are not a new phenomena. They've always existed, but in the age of streaming services and social media, it seems like we're living in a golden age for scammers, where if your scam is flashy enough and captures our attention in just the right kind of way, what might have started as a scam can be laundered into a more legitimate platform.
For instance, Netflix is The Tinder Swindler, a documentary that chronicles Simon Levev, who posed as a wealthy jet set playboy by duping women that he met on the dating app Tender out of thousands of dollars. Levev's cohn involved convincing women to loan hymn money throughout landish lives, and since the documentary, Levev is clearly trying to parlay the attention and notoriety from his Cohn into a pathway of
a more legitimate, not to mention, lucrative platform. So, as Anna wants intimated to a BBC reporter, it's kind of hard to say that crime doesn't pay, because it seems like in our current media landscape it kind of does. I think that we live in a climate where people who scam and live people like like she was, as you said, she was convicted of this. It's not like it's some big secrets. It's not like it's you.
Saying this is exactly.
These are just the facts of what happened. I feel like we are allowing pathways to legitimize these people, and like, you know, maybe it started as a con and it started as a scam. By the end of it, you'll have money and an audience and people who are interested to see what happens next, and that you can sort of legitimize that. Like, for instance, if you watch the Netflix documentary The Tender Swindler, the scammer in that case, Simone Simon Simon something like that, Yeah, you know, we
got this big bump in social media followers. And also is making pretty good money on cameo right now, he's charging three hundred dollars for a personal shout out and fourteen hundred dollars for business shout out. He has a manager, He's talked about wanting to do a podcast. You know, are are we creating?
Ore?
Is the media creating pathways for folks to legitimize what started out as a scam or a con or a lie.
Absolutely, And I think, you know, looking back, it's actually a really interesting book about this called The Attention Merchants by this this man called Tim Wu. With the rise of reality television in this model of normal person to celebrity as like a model for business, and then it evolved into social media where people not you know, they
could It wasn't like winning the lottery. Everybody too could do this if they found a way to brand themselves, to market themselves that was compelling enough to attract attention. But as we've just realized, unless you have some kind of outlandish loud stick or personality, like, no one is
really paying attention. And I think this is like now evolved into curation, not just through digital media, but here are these people, and these people have always existed, mind you, but we live in and age where that kind of
behavior is really rewarded. You know, it's not an age where it's about you know, morality or like like which which sounds so like pollyannish and hokey, but it's very much about this sort of the cult of personality and who would chect our attention and like obviously who we you know, voted our president is a testament to that.
What you just articulated is one of my biggest issues in making the show is the way that we have our entire digital ecosystem and media ecosystem is biased toward outrageousness and lies and scams. It's been a documented thing that on social media, incorrect information travels much faster and much farther than accurate information.
There's us saying like a lie can travel around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes or some variation of that. But it's very true, absolutely true.
And so you know, we talk a lot on this podcast about the way that our landscapes have become this like marketplace for extremism and who's really losing is us the general public.
You know, there's a problem when the Weather channel is sensationalized, like for the Weather channel to be like whoa like you know, and giving these like hokey names to things and like making everything seem like a doomsday event and it's like it's like sprinkling outside, like there's no news here. They rely on viewership the same way as any other channel does. So like for our entire economy to run based on like clicks or attention, like that is scary.
There there are certain things that I think probably would we all might be a little better off if there were other motivators.
We all deserve timely, thoughtful, accurate information. And so even you know, your example of the Weather channel, if I need to know whether or not to bring an umbrella, and I turn on the weather and it's like you know, monsoons and hurricanes and oh my god, and it's like, well, I'm being underserved because I don't know if I need to bring an umbrella, but I'm going down the street, you know. And so we all we all lose out.
We all lose when we don't when we have any kind of media ecosystem that is biased towards sensationalism or lies or scams or clicks and outrageousness rather than thoughtful, accurate, nuanced content, and.
It pushes us to the extremes of either total belief or complete disbelief, because either you buy into whatever you know, cool age you're looking for, like whether that's Fox News or you know some like extreme version of like CNN. Like you know, they all have their biased reporting techniques, right, but like I think you either sort of hop on a bandwagon or you say none of it's objective. I don't believe anything, and then that's not great either, because
there are still things that should be believed. So I do agree that it is a disservice to everybody because it creates a system in which it's really hard to tell truth from fiction.
In my data that they do a lot of work combating conspiracy theories and things like that and trying to kind of understand why people fall prey to them, and a big part of it is just complete lack of complete lack of trust in media institutions. And I think that's a big reason why it's, like I can understand why somebody would just lose all trust in media when that is the thing that fuels it. Yeah.
Absolutely, And there is a lot of similarity obviously. I mean the stakes are just sort of it's apples and oranges with when it comes to like someone like Anna and like masculine conspiracy theories. But there is similarity in the way that both I guess, like lie structures or manipulation techniques rely on framing arguments in a way that makes them almost irrefutable because they they they speak to these sort of like cryptic abstracts or things that you
literally just can't disprove even though they are false. It's like a flaw, a flawed framing device. And I think it's really hard for people, especially if you're isolated, to keep your feet on the ground and understand what's happening if you're not familiar with that type of behavioral pattern.
After the disastrous ship to Marrakesh, Rachel was left with a sixty two thousand dollars credit card bill that her credit card company eventually forgave, But before that, Rachel struggled to pay rent and took loans from loved ones to cover bills to get by. She eventually published her book about what she learned from her relationship with Anna called My Friend Anna, and sold the rights to develop her
story for television to Lena Donnom at HBO. Rachel takes a lot of criticism for quote, profiting off of her relationship to Anna. So I wanted to go back to something that you mentioned, which is that you sometimes take criticism for the fact that you published a book about
your experiences, You've written about your experiences. I interviewed Amanda Knox, the EXONERI you probably know who she is, and something that she said in that interview that I will never forget is that, you know, she's often criticized for making money,
you know, writing books about what happened to her. And you know, however, producers, filmmakers, writers, they make a lot of money retelling sometimes like a really harmful, deeply fictionalized account of something that like sort of happened around her. But like it's always like deeply, deeply fictionalized. And something that she said was that it's apparently everyone else is allowed to profit off of something that happened to me except for me. Everybody who's to make money off of
my story but me? And I guess, you know, why do you think this is? You know, I guess I should say a side note, which is that if I lost a lot of money, anybody who wanted to pay me to tell the story of what happened to me to recoup my expenses, I would absolutely say yes, And I think that most people would. But I feel that we have this expectation where victims are kind of expected to be kind of holier than now. Meanwhile, the people who harmed them like they can do whatever they can
make money. However, and so I think, like, why do you think that is?
Where do think that comes from? I mean, first of all, I do completely agree with you, it often feels like the victims are on trial more so than the criminals. Uh. And also like there's this odd thing that I've realized, the word victim is has so much like packed into the connotations around the word. The word It's like people think, as soon as you're no longer in debt or as soon as you've been made hold, no matter how hard hard you have to work to actually become okay, you're
not a victim anymore. Like you're now you know, and someone who's exploiting a situation. If you, you know, keep moving forward, if you're seen to succeed, and it's like, what is a victim? Like does a victim? What does the victim look like. I've had so many people reach out to me on social media to say, you don't look like a victim, and I think that is such a loaded odd thing to say to somebody, Like saying that you were the victim of a crime is not
a request for pity. It's a request for acknowledgment of a wrong that was committed. You know. It is not like I'm still stuck in this like stalled state in perpetuity. It's like, this happened and that's a fact. Doesn't matter what you do afterwards to be okay, you know, to repair the damage, to find a way out of it. Like that is really not relevant. But I think there there are a lot of things that are distracting, especially when these stories get retold through the lens of media
or entertainment. People tend to fixate on the whistles and bells and the flashy trips and the money, and they hold that I think the jury did the same thing. They sort of hold that lens up and say, well, you know, looking at the net gain you were doing this before, Anna, and now you're doing this, you came
out Okay, therefore, nope, the crime didn't happen. It's like, wait, so you're saying I was too good at you know, finding like writing tooth and nail to find a way forward, like therefore it didn't happen, Like what, why do I think it happens? I think it's really easy for people to hold on to really simplified recaps of something that was actually very complex and nuanced. And of course, looking back,
red flags look like this, like very tidy pattern. But when you're living through something where you're dealing with a master manipulator, you know there's time between these these things that might have tipped you off to trouble ahead. There's there's a there's an actual relationship between real life people, and everything is much grayer than it appears in hindsight.
Yeah, it's so funny because I feel like a lot of people I've seen and I saw, like I guess this idea of you know, well, while that was happening, she definitely wanted to go to Morocco where she definitely wanted this, And it's like who gives a ship like it? Just see it just seems so like picking apart. It feels very victim blaming.
It's very very convenient, and and I think people want to look for a reason to explain why something bad has happened to somebody, you know, especially if it is not like you know, dead dead, like you know, when it seems like someone's come out okay, then it's like, okay, we all have, like Curt Blanche, to just sit here
and talk about why you deserved it. And you know, at the end of the day, like it's everybody wants to be understood, Like it seems to be misunderstood, and it seems to have things framed in a way that's not true, especially when they're so personal and so many people are forming opinions about you from so little information and flawed information. But at the end of the day, like everybody looks at a story like this, which you know is not a news story. It's like tale as
old as time. It's just been in a modern uh iteration of it. But you people look at it and they project their understand like they come away with an understanding of it based on their own life experiences. And if it's important for people to think, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, or you know, don't get sucked into materialism or like you know, everybody looks at it and thinks these things. But I think that's actually more telling of their own life experiences than
it is necessarily of mine. Like have I asked myself those questions? Of course I have, Like if I hadn't, I think, you know, it's really important to look at That's why I wrote A wrote I guess to start, and I wrote what turned into the book. But it was so that I could frame, you know, piece together
this like narrative of experience that I lived through. Look at it, try to like dig into it, understand what happened, what to make of it, like why it happened, and how to learn, heal and move forward.
Something that you said, You said, people want an explanation for why this happened to you. I think what they're actually looking for is an explanation for why this would never happen to them. I think it's about.
Them, right, and I mean absolutely, as they don't even know me, and and like there even if even if someone didn't meet me through this experience, this is something that happened, was a friendship. I knew her for a year. We were close friends for about three months, three brief months. Like, she never bought me clothes, she never bought me shoes, she never bought like did I work out with her? Yes? Did she pay for some dinners? Yes? Did she invite
me on this crazy vacation? One hundred percent? But to say that anybody understands someone else's entire values like value system and personality and character through like a few months of what is a you know, thirty some odd year life with so many more important and like I don't know telling things but any it's just life is weird.
Huh, life is weird. I kind of say, I love this is kind of a side note. I love your perspective on this. I feel like if this happened to me, I guess I guess. You know you were saying earlier how people don't really see the work involved in getting you to a place where you're like this is behind me.
I'm speaking about it now not because I want to relitigate what happened, like the minutia of our relationship, but because I want to ask these like thoughtful questions about what it says about our culture and all of that you think as someone who is like, you know, I know we don't see that work, but where you are today, it just seems like you're you. I really appreciate your perspective of where you're at right now.
I really appreciate you like acknowledging or understanding that because it's very hard. You know, like even I guess being a photo producer is much the same way. It's like if you're doing it while nobody pays attention to how it happened or why it's happening in this way. But like, I mean, it's irritating except that, like there's nothing I can do. People who are want to be wrong or
it's going to be wrong. But like when people are like, oh, you just want the spotlight or oh you just want attention, it's like I've turned down so many more things than I have said yes to, Like this is a spotlight that I did not want. You know, I have done the best I could with something that was very negative, and I've done the best could to make it into something positive, not just for myself, but ideally for others who may have gone through the same thing, or to
prevent others from going through the same thing. But you like think you're You're completely right. Like my very specific and clear objective as to why I'm still talking today, does it really is about the spotlight that I didn't want, And I thought very hard about whether or not to just sort of like lie low, not comment to the Netflix thing came out. It just like not say anything
at all. But I recognize the value of attention, and I recognize the fact that whether or not I choose to engage with it, there would be this attention coming my way. And it felt like there are so many really important causes in the world that need attention. There's so many important issues even relating to this specifically that
can't get people to pay attention to them. So I really wanted to like yield the time towards asking questions and then ideally, I mean like finding people like you or or you know, finding a way to sort of redirect the spotlight towards towards activation partners who can speak to these issues in a thoughtful way and and make people think a little harder or differently about something that on the surface just seems so sort of frivolous.
Our attention has value, and it's also we only have so much of it. And so when lies and outrageousness are amplify to get our attention, what's not getting our attention? What important is are just going overlooked because.
Exactly, and that's I think that's that's so right. It's like, you know, do I watch bad TV? Of course I do. Do I eat junk food, of course I do. Like it's not to say don't do it, it's just to be mindful that if that's all you do, like that really will inform the health of your life. Like, like you know, when you are paying attention to these things that are designed to suck up your tension, that are designed to make you want more of them, they're addicting.
You are not paying attention to something else. You are not, you know, necessarily having the autonomy you may think you have over the direction of your purpose.
I definitely know what you mean. More after a quick break, let's get right back into it. So you can probably tell that I did not really enjoy the Netflix show Inventing Anna, And one of my biggest issues with it is the way that it frames Anna's crimes with a kind of girl bas's hustle mentality that she came to this country as an immigrant with nothing, and that if she did maybe do a little lying and scamming here or there, it was only in pursuit of building something
that she truly believed in after all? Is that The American Dream? Over on another scammer story, who Lose the Dropout, which chronicles the story of Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Sarahos, a blood testing company that turned out to be a total scam, actually does a pretty good job of showing how empty, not to mention, dangerous, it can be when
scamming and lying is rebranded as vision or leadership. One of the questions I did have for you is that the The Inventing Anna Show does this, but I've also seen it kind of glimmers of it, and other scammers and just sort of in media in general, this idea of like scamming and lying kind of being rebranded as hustling or trying to achieve the American Dream or worse,
girl bossing. You know, I get, I completely, like logistically understand why that's how it's framed or why it's how it's reframed, But it's such an easy narrative, but I, you know, I think it's kind of harmful to reframe feeling from people and lying from people as hustling and girl bossing and leadership. And I guess my question is like, what are your thoughts about that. Have you seen this and what do you think about it?
Yeah, I think it's lazy. I just I think it's lazy, and I do think it does it It does do damage to the reality. You know, it's so backwards to attempt to make something about like classism, racism, sexism, and then to frame it in a way that is promoting someone who couldn't care less about those issues unless they're
serving their own agenda. Like that is such a disservice to people who are actually working to real you know, to explore and explore these issues and create positive change in ways that are actually meaningful and substantive, especially in the past I don't even know how many years, I guess like ten years or so, maybe less, like these these sort of catch all buzzwords like like feminism or like it's greet there's a performative activism that that features
words that have become trendy and and like missions that have become trendy, and I think shows like this have kind of glommed on to that.
I told you I watched the finale of the show on Piboloo, the dropout about Elizabeth Holmes and the Saraho Scam Lady. There was a time in feminism where like a woman, like a woman like making money that was feminism.
I do think there's a kind of it's sort of a it's sort of like era feminism I'm not proud of, where yeah, if you were just a woman who was making like out for herself and making money, that was seen as like a feminist win, and we didn't really ask a lot of questions about are you harming people? Are you you know, like like we didn't really ask
a lot of questions. And I think that I kind of see this era kind of maybe coming to a close, I hope, But I think that that era really all out for women to be lauded as feminist icons for doing things that actually hurt other people at their own expense.
I don't think the answer to chauvinism is a form of feminism that mirrors the same thing, like that reverses that that negative way of being. Like, I do think sometimes pendulums swing too far before they kind of find their middle, and it seems like that's what happened. It's like, well, you did this for so long, therefore, like it's my time to do it, and we should celebrate the fact
that I'm doing it. It's I think it's it's hard sometimes to see that when you're in it, and when it's a reaction rather than like like it's it's reactive rather than proactive. Right, So it's it's like finding a way to exist as a woman in reaction to to what men have done wrong, rather than just finding a way to exist as a woman. I don't have solutions, but I see the friend as well, and I guess
one thing related to the who we showed. But I think that show actually strikes me as I mean, obviously what she did does not strike me as something that was done well. But the show I thought did a good job actually of dramatizing real life events because they framed her in a way that felt very true to the actual sequencing of what happened. Like I read Bad Blood by John care You and it felt like it, you know, it followed a fact pattern, and it framed
her not as someone that everybody was. I mean, you saw how she was celebrated, but that was true to
the way that it happened in real life. It was very true to the mixed reactions she received, And I thought Amanda Seeping did an amazing job of not of like gleefully sort of relishing like the shtick of the con but just in framing this sort of very misguided, probably like psychologically unhealthy person who like just kind of lacked a certain like human ship that allowed her to understand the importance of her decision making on real lives.
It just was such a foil for me when I watched that versus what I'd seen and Inventing Anna, which really just looked like something that had been made by people who really bought into what Anna was selling.
Oh my gosh, I so I am happy to hear you say this. I felt the exact person of all Inventing Anna, all all of the issues that you brought up with it, Yes, but also just like with a slog to watch, like I wanted to watch it before I talked to you, and literally my partner was like, I feel like you've been watching this show for a decade, and I was like, you and me both just wasn't
an enterhating show. And I guess having that having like I felt the Dropout was different because it had empathy for the people who were harmed, right Like you saw these people who were you know, had cancer and we're involved in these blood these blood trials. You know. It had empathy for the whistleblowers who risked so much of
their of their selves to come forward. I felt like it was a show that managed to demonstrate the kind of seductive you know, cult a personality around a scammer without falling prey to it, and inventing Annah was exactly the opposite.
It was done, Yeah, it was done so thoughtfully. It had such depth to it because yeah, of course there were people who like popped on the bandwagon and celebrated Harry Like. It was just the full range of people who were made to read like real life people. You know. I think Inventing Anna flattened everybody. And there's a way that can be done in like a show like Gossip Girl or a show that is meant to be and in some ways I guess this is but meant to
be about materialism and superficiality. But to reduce something like this, we're real, real crime were committed, real people's lives were impacted. It wasn't just these like faceless things. There are people who lose jobs. They're people who obviously are not obviously if we're obvious, that wouldn't be a problem. But there are people who weren't included in the Kirk you know, the court case. She definitely committed so many offenses that
harmed your life people. So I think to flatten something like that into this like very frivolous, like fun, glossy slog of a TV show full stuff, I don't know, do dot.
Yeah, I mean, it's there were times where I was like, are you meant to be rooting for Anna in the show? And then the I think the richest part is at the end, where the biggest crime the show seems to suggest has been committed is the character that shares your same name. She's like like nep is, like you're a bad friend, and it's like, well, Anna went to jail, Like come on, I.
Know, I get, I mean, and people really believe all that is fact, Like you were like she bankroll drew you for two years, and like I know better than to feed the trolls on the internet, Like it's not my job to to like educate people about fact, like what, like the truth is out there if anybody wants to look for it. But like I didn't even know her
that long. She didn't have thing like but yeah, so to have have it framed as though, like where's the loyalty, It's like this is someone you know, we were not best friends. I knew her for and also look what she did. Look at the pattern of her behavior. At what point, why are you suggesting people who are in these like manipulative relationships, do they friendships or whatever like that, that they are doing something wrong by choosing to leave
something that is so harmful. Like that's bizarre. That's like, that's a very bizarre thing to say. Also, the show rearranged it as though I had been reimbursed before the trial and that I like kept the secret of my involvement with her arrest, like like or kept out a secret like didn't happen. I was protected to years after Marrakesh after the trial concluded. I didn't keep my involvement
in this sting some kind of like grand secret. I wasn't ashamed of it, but I wasn't that close with like Naphra Casey, you know, I like them I don't. I have nothing negative to say. It's like, fine, everybody can look back and see things through their lenses and that's you know, it is what it is. But we weren't in touch. It's not like I owed people explanations. I was out more than they made any They were not left in any kind of like debt or like
there was no ongoing relationship there. So to suggest that by not reaching out to say hello, like this is what I have done, and like, it's like that's just weird, does it? It doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, And I think people people understand the way these relationships and acquaintanceships work in their own lives and it's like, of course that would be like you wouldn't owe these people anything or you wouldn't owe like you know, But when it's someone else and that the minutia of those relationships are like projected for everyone to pick apart, suddenly it's like, oh, well, why would she do this? Doesn't
she have loyalty? And it's like, well, calm down, think about how this at go down if it was you, Like, we all understand that in our own lives, but when it's somebody else, I think it's like different.
Yeah, evidently, and I understand people don't tune into shows like this to really think very analytically. It's mostly about just getting a good laugh at other people's expense, and like I, you know, I do too. It's fine, Like I'm not. I certainly can't like hate on people for
being human, like that's how this works. I just I think that the frivolity of it does can feel something that is a bigger picture problem, as I have said, which is why I figure, if I'm stuck in this this like dumpster fire anyway, I might as well shy and like send up a smoke signal about you know, red flags that I know a little too well from firsthand experience.
Yes, speaking of your stain experience. One of the last questions I have is, like, what has it just been like for you, Rachel, the person going through this, getting the social media's trolls, getting people who have maybe been misled about what happened from the television show. What has it been like to deal with that on online?
Yeah, I mean it's it's definitely not easy. But I'm mindful of the like I'm I'm mindful of my privilege and my luck. Just to have like such supportive family and friends, to have an awareness of exactly what it
is that is happening. You know, part of it I learned the hard way, just through gaslighting with Anna to begin with, and now through what I've learned in looking back and what happened looking at like I guess, I mean, writing the book helped me a lot, just in terms of sort of looking at the pattern of behavior as a pattern rather than like this. When you're in a relationship like that, it's really hard to see anything as black and white, because it's not. Life is gray. But
looking back, things seem so much clearer to me. So I'm grateful to have had people who believe me, who like like a platform to speak from, the opportunity to speak,
which all that is to say it's hard. But part of the reason I'm speaking up about it is because I think the structure of the Netflix show, or this broader pattern that's happening, it does a disservice to people who don't have that ability to understand what's happening to them, who might not get to hear stories like this because people are ashamed or they're scared of the victim blaming,
which is completely fair. It's not it's I mean, it's wild and it you know, I can have my feet on the ground and my head on my shoulders, and if I sit there and read that for longer than maybe like ten minutes, like it, even if you know that, you know it's actually not about you, doesn't feel good to have that kind of energy coming Like I mean that sounds so wo but like that kind of hostility coming at you, Like it's like death by paper cuts.
Like you can be the strongest rock in the water, but like if it keeps running, like you're gonna get worn down. So it's hard, but I recognize that it's harder, so much harder for so many other people, And uh yeah, then I can be pretty nasty.
We've talked a lot about how the dangers that come when we give out, when we willingly give our attention a way to liars and scammers and people who are outrageous and extreme. Do you ever see a situation where things like nuance, thoughtfulness, honest, accurate content will be amplified over that kind of extremism and lies? Do you think that we're this is just it forever or do you see it? Do you see a change coming, I.
Mean, as evidenced bypass behavior. I am kind of a willful optimists through and through, and that is just who I am, so I always hope for that, you know, I do think the damage done by what you just said, like the pattern. What I'm trying to say is the truth will out, And it's one thing to think the pattern of celebrating these individuals does do harm. That is and will be visible until there is a movement in
the opposite direction. So I think we've already seen that, like from like Me Too forward, where people are starting to pay attention to things in a different way and actually attempt to hold outlets and individuals to account. I just think it's in very specific arenas thus far that that seems to be happening. And I think people like to to sort of pretend that things they do for entertainment don't touch on the same subjects or don't have the same impact or our seriousness, and that, to me
is that that's the slippery slope. I hope that people recognize these things are not separate. They're inextricably linked to the way that we as a culture celebrate people and former beliefs.
That's really smart, Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi. You can reach us at Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Brigit Toad. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer.
I'm your host, Bridgetad. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. More podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.