It didn't work, but it might have: Billy is superficially charming and helpful, and everyone wanted to believe him.īut he saw, and continued to see, someone with whom he had a personal relationship only as a source of profit. He is happy to tell the story of his beginnings: In the second grade, a classmate he had a crush on broke her crayon, and Billy told her he'd fix it if she gave him a dollar. Billy incorporates all the worst faults of the grifters and con artists of the title, and did so from a very early age. Bluestone's poster boy for these scammers is one Billy McFarland, who was sent to prison for wire fraud and money laundering. Think the Kardashians and you won't be far off. And secondarily, it's about the influencer culture itself - the widespread practice of posting to social media sites like Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, displaying desirable objects (including yourself), acquiring thousands or millions of followers, and either charging them admission or getting paid by big companies for showcasing their products.

of Theranos, who is about to go to trial for fraud. We're not talking about the problem of apportioning screen time for tweens 'Hype' is about would-be entrepreneurs who set out to defraud as many people as they can with the promise of 'the next big thing,' which turns out not to exist - scammers like Elizabeth Holmes, C.E.O. (Apr.One thing that must be said for Gabrielle Bluestone: Her timing is impeccable the bizarre doings of internet users is the hottest topic around.

(“ ‘That’s one of the best explanations I’ve ever heard,’ gushes one influencer to Bluestone about her question ‘It makes me laugh, because the way that you-I’ve never heard anyone explain it as well as you did.’ ”) The result is a baggy, rambling tour of internet fakery that itself feels somewhat overhyped. Bluestone offers some entertaining case studies of internet frauds, but her theorizing of it all as a symptom of “a post-truth world” feels overblown and the narrative can bog down in repetitive, semi-articulate interviews. Alongside her reporting on the Fyre debacle, Bluestone explores the economy of influencers who leverage pseudo-relationships with followers into hidden marketing deals with the brands showcased in their feeds, taking potshots along the way at Tesla founder Elon Musk, WeWork founder Adam Neumann, and, inevitably, Donald Trump. McFarland had spent millions on parties for himself and on social media personalities who swayed followers to buy tickets to the nonevent, and later pleaded guilty to defrauding his investors. Vice journalist Bluestone investigates impresario–con man Billy McFarland’s infamous 2017 Fyre Festival, which was hyped as a glamorous music festival in a Bahamian island paradise but ended up being a rain-soaked gathering at a gravel pit. One shouldn’t believe everything they see on social media, admonishes this scattershot exposé of online deception.

Hype bluestone