People can't get enough of 'The Dropout' and 'Inventing Anna.' Zoe Clews, founder of Zoe Clews & Associates, joins Cheddar News to discuss why people are obsessed with scammer narratives.

Between Bells

Why We're Obsessed with Scammer Narratives

Hanna is a legend around here. You have to work hard to get what you want. I've always known that I'm building something. It's a private club, a step beyond the V. I. P. Room. It's 40 million to finance. We have two banks interested in loaning her the money holy to building something special. $40 million dollar loan. How in the hell does that happen? They only do it on the, I love that show. Hollywood is cashing in on notable scammers from the Tinder swindler to the fake heiress Anna. Delvian inventing anna to Elizabeth Holmes and you lose the drop out just to name a few. As soon as the streamer drops a new scammer story, people flocked to them eager to get to the bottom of the deceit themselves being dubbed by Glamour magazine And I love this. A golden age of scammer core. It pays for a streamer to highlight these scammers as of the week of March 7th to the 13th, Inventing Anna is number three on netflix's top 10 tv series. Is it because audiences feel these unfortunate stories are just so wild that it could never happen to them? Or is it the opposite? A warning of what? To avoid themselves? Whatever the reason, the question still lies, why are audiences so interested in watching others get tube joining us to help answer this very question is Zoe clues. Founder of Zoe clues and associates. Zoe, welcome to the show, Let's start with that. Why does chronicling someone's misfortunes in these docks on netflix or wherever else hulu, so entertaining for us. The audience. Well, you know, there's this aspect to human nature which isn't always too attractive to shout and for which is we're interested in the misfortune of others. So in on one hand, we are interested in what happens to the actual scandal, whether they get caught. And we're also interested in the person that gets scammed. So we're looking to see how these things happen to people and you know, con men and scammers have always been relevant, but we're living in this increasingly globalized world, so everything is much more up for grabs. You know, people want to live a glamorous life. We're living in a world where you see instagram influence, for example, seem to be creating big lives very, very quickly. And then we look at somebody like Simon from the Tinder swindler for example, and he's able to create that illusion of wealth so quickly, which is a story that we're constantly being sold to everybody wants everything immediately. So, the scammer is someone who finds a way to do that. I'll be it for a short period of time and in this day and age were fascinated by that. And you know, the second reason I'd say is that we're always interested in the scammer narrative on a psychological level. So we're living in a time when there's so much information, there's so much shock that we can always become numbed out and we can get what I call enthusiasm, fatigue. So not much shocks us anymore. We've been a bit numbed out in this age of overwhelmed only the most intriguing stories cut through. So, scanners and common have long been intriguing because deception has always been psychologically intriguing and the receptors themselves even more so um that's why true crime stories are such a popular classic. For example, I think most of us think will be admit to being fascinated by the sheer gall of the scammers. How did they do it? Why did they do it? Will they get caught? What would be the damage done in the meantime? And what happens to the victims? And how do they reel them in? So why is it so dangerous though, showing these stories and dramatizing them for audiences? Well, I think, I don't know if it's dangerous, I think it's dangerous if they're being glamorized. If we look at the example of Simon the Tinder Swindler now french Montana put a picture of him up on his instagram feed. Now, french Montana's got 20 million followers and he had put a picture of him up shot of him with the caption, I met the real life Tinder swindler words to that effect. Now that's kind of painting him as a little bit of a hero. So it all depends on your psychological makeup. Hopefully by showing these scammers narratives, it will help people do their due diligence and not take people's stories at face value, but of course some people who want that sort of quick rich get rich, quick lifestyle could find it inspiring. So it's about the glamorizing, that's the issue with it, Former Vanity Fair Staffer Rachel Williams of course, was caught out of $62,000 for those of us who watched inventing Anna Williams is saying she's shocked that so many of us are empathetic, sympathetic towards Anna. Do you think these narrow narratives Hollywood is taking is hurtful to the real life victims that we're seeing? I think it can be, yes, because we've got to understand that they are the victims. But then you also have, you know, there's double narratives, isn't it isn't? For example, if you look at Sama who was obviously the subject of the netflix documentary, Bad vegan. You know, she scammed people, but she was also scammed herself. So that is an interesting aspect. But you know, our empathy should labor the victim because these are the ones that are psychologically and often financially damaged at the same time. So, again, it goes back to that point, we mustn't glamorize this. And whilst it's always interesting to look at why someone may have scammed ultimately they have to take responsibility for the damage that they've done to their victims. So for an average person watching these these series netflix hulu series, Why might audiences feel these stories are so relatable Zoe well, I think, you know, no matter how worldly wise aware or clever, we might be. I think we can all relate to being scanned on some level, whether that's having are heartbroken or whether that's going for a business deal or financial opportunity that seem too good to be true because it was and we're all interested in, you know, how that could possibly happen to us. And I think one of the things we've got to take into consideration is that you don't have to be necessarily naive to be scammed, scammers are becoming more and more sophisticated, especially in this digital age and especially at a time when people, a lot of people want to live a big glamorous lifestyle and also they're selling a fantasy. If you look at Simon who was selling the fantasy of love and if you look at anna she was selling this fantasy of being this kind of this heiress and this whole lifestyle. Um if we look at the dropout Elizabeth Holmes, she was, I think she was named as the first self made female billionaire in Silicon Valley. So they're selling something and also things with Salmon as well. Here she was this beautiful woman living a really healthy lifestyle and this raw vegan restaurant was cutting edge at the time. So that all selling a fantasy and we all get taken in to some extent by these glamorous charismatic characters and that's why it's so important to always do your due diligence when it comes to fantasy. I think the most important thing is keep your feet on the ground and actually look at what you are being sold before you go and sign on the dotted line because that's romantically, financially or otherwise. I think that's really good advice. Zoe Lewis, founder of Zoe Closest associates, thank you so much Zoe.