The Internet, and social media is chock full of insincerity aimed at making a quick buck. Here’s some other resources.
The thought leader connects the audience through an identity aspect: nationality, race, gender, political leaning, generation. The thought leaders belief in the message being delivered is not required and not necessary to be consistent on a day to day basis. Spontaneous emotional reaction is the desired result.
“Before the Internet, grifters were criminals who moved from town to town, seeking easy targets for money scams.” Outdated (2005) now, instead of emails the message is presented on social media. Mass emails require a response and further work to vet the target. People readily let their feelings about emotional issues be known on social media.
Infamous grifters. Not directly using the Internet for the grift, but name recognition with an Internet/social media presence goes a long way before people figure out you’re up to no good.
Point #1 Lawyers are expensive. Better to learn about the scams and not get conned in the first place.
Point #2 The scammer will ask you to do a small favor. Like starting off small with things like commenting and liking YouTube videos. This identifies someone with some sincerity in belief of the scheme instead of a casual observer; someone worth giving more one on one attention to.
Point #3 This firm will defend you if you’ve been unjustly accused of being a grifter. Of course. Social media isn’t going to step up and identify who is a free speech true believer vs. a person having a single bad day that said something out of character. Having a lot of money for lawyers goes a long way for being determined to be right even when you aren’t.
So scared of the Internet but you want content about the scams?
The best con artists know more about psychology tha you do. More than some psychologists. For a good idea of how this plays out in a romanticized fictional setting, watch the movie House of Games.
Sports gematria - the fake product is the illusion of gambling success.
“…a grift economy so embedded in our daily lives we barely notice.”
The lure of starting off small and building a following to become the next great influencer.
How being purposefully wrong about everything made Alex Jones rich and famous.
Most of the really off the wall ideas originate with conservatives. Then left wing grifters have an excuse to overreact and do their own scamming. With the grift economy so normalized and embedded, politicians simply do not care about being right anymore.
Oh no, he’s not done yet. Not by a long shot.
Whatever comes after Covid will be just as poorly handled as Covid was when wellness grifting is so popular. Alternative medicine topics aren’t going away. Ever.
Belief in baseless conspiracies is edgy and cool, because your government sucks.
Pricey conferences for being fed a steady diet of disinformation. What could possibly go wrong?
There are more of these. A lot more. During the remainder of this year and pre Election Day 2024 there will be even more. A lot more. The messages will be a combination of old favorites that won’t go away, like the 2020 election being stolen and new material based on current events. But the tactics will be the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment