I’m a little obsessed with fraud.
It’s not one of those things that I usually list when asked for my hobbies (since even Dungeons & Dragons and anime seem less weird) and started when I read Bad Blood a couple of years ago. Sometimes when you work at a library, a book will infect you and your coworkers, hopping from staff member to staff member until everyone in the organization has come down with a copy. It’s unusual for a nonfiction book to make the rounds like this, but John Carreyrou’s exhaustive reporting on Theranos and the criminal lengths its leadership went to to keep it afloat mesmerized us and twisted its way into my brain in a way few stories have before, or since.
Around the same time, an anime-focused YouTuber I enjoy released the first in a three-part series on the Japanese cult Happy Science. Cults have the same DNA as financial fraud and often share the same hallmarks as Silicon Valley scams: charismatic leaders, unfounded promises of prosperity, the need for seed money, and violent suppression of dissent. So I waded in a little deeper.
From there, it was a quick detour into anti-MLM content, a constant staple of snark Reddits and video essayists. Multi-level marketing companies are in the business of selling a dream but more explicitly than some other finance-based scams. All frauds prey on the desire for wealth and therefore freedom, but MLM marketing is shockingly consistent in both the details (Be your own boss! Build your own business! We’ll pay for your luxury car!) and the scheme (the upline is the boss, most MLM “businesses” have a 99% chance of failure, that car is leased in your name and will be repossessed if you fail to keep performing at the same level).
And then I fell face-first into cryptocurrency scams and have yet to swim myself out. These are my favorites. They are asinine. They are nonsensical. They are both highly technical and unbearably simple. They are the only reason why I know anything about cryptocurrency, and I’m a little embarrassed by how much Web3 knowledge I’ve osmosified through my obsession with crypto grifts.
I’m not alone here. There are lots of books and articles trying to explain humanity’s persistent obsession with cons and especially con artists. I’ve even read a few, and most of the arguments boil down to either an admiration or fascination with the audacity of the perpetrator. How dare someone be so bold for so long? American society idolizes confidence and it’s literally in the job title.
I don’t have the personality for rule breaking and generally little patience for the inconveniences caused by people that do. Maybe there’s a part of me that’s compelled by the big personalities and the shamelessness of it all, but I’m not convinced that’s the full answer. Maybe I keep coming back because fraud scratches that true crime itch but feels less exploitative (tax evasion rarely ends with a dismembered woman). Maybe it just happens that the online creators that I’ve formed parasocial bonds with happen to be interested in it too. Maybe I’m just at the point where fraud is too familiar.
Because once you know enough about it, fraud is comfort food. It never changes. The motive is never interesting and always money. Every MLM screws over its adherents in the exact same way. All crypto schemes rely on the financial illiteracy of marks who are willing to invest thousands of actual dollars into a product that does nothing and is created by an anonymous developer with a profile picture of an AI-generated ape (or worse, Logan Paul).
The pitfall of consuming fraud as entertainment is desensitization. Because the other consistent thing about fraud is that its perpetrators are rarely caught and rarely punished. You hear about the Elizabeth Holmeses and Sam Bankman-Frieds of the world, but when was the last time the government shut down a predatory MLM? Or prosecuted the architects of a mid-level crypto rug pull? Everywhere you turn, someone is using deceit to get ahead at the expense of someone else, and most of the time it seems like the only punishment, if there is one at all, is some YouTuber putting out a roast video.
Or maybe it’s just a coping mechanism. I work in the sort of place where you watch people scam themselves, where it both is and is not your job to protect them, where a repeated “this thing you’re involved in seems a bit sketchy; have you considered calling your bank for advice?” is ignored in favor of stubborn optimism. And of course, I work in a place where people try to scam me. Where they tell me that they never checked out those twenty DVDs that are billed on their account, where they report that the vending machine ate their fifteen dollars, where they slip out the door without paying after you spend an hour helping them print out over sixty dollars worth of evidence for their custody hearing.
I work at a place where I am often given the choice between the evidence of my experience and belief in the human condition. My mandate is to assume positive intent even when confronted daily with an individual’s capacity for negative action. I’ll do it, if I can. Maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe it’ll get easy.
And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Hello. I am a small time contractor looking to keep my business afloat by performing maintenance on bridges. I hear you have one to sell. Please send details to my email so we can discuss.