Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists Are Taking Over the Internet – and Why We’re Following

by Gabrielle Bluestone
@g_bluestone

“Hype is the best kind of nonfiction: juicy, sharp, savage and wildly entertaining, with a celebrity behaving badly on every page. What more could you want?” -Cat Marnell, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Murder Your Life

From former Vice journalist and executive producer of hit Netflix documentary Fyre comes an eye-opening look at the con artists, grifters and snake oil salesmen of the digital age—and why we can’t stop falling for them.

We live in an age where scams are the new normal. A charismatic entrepreneur sells thousands of tickets to a festival that never happened. Respected investors pour millions into a start-up centered around fake blood tests. Reviewers and celebrities flock to London’s top-rated restaurant that’s little more than a backyard shed. These unsettling stories of today’s viral grifters have risen to fame and hit the front-page headlines, yet the curious conundrum remains: Why do these scams happen?

Interview with the Author

Modern Wisdom
#312 Gabrielle Bluestone – The World’s Biggest Scammers
4/24/21        64 min

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Leonoard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York
Gabrielle Bluestone on Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists Are Taking Over the Internet
5/6/21          55 min 

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Sylvia & Me
Gabrielle Bluestone: Journalist and Author ‘Hype’
6/10/21        39 min

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The Look Up! Podcast with Marc Weinstein
Hype, Con Artists, and Reality Distortion with Gabrielle Bluestone, former Vice journalist and author of Hype
4/15/21        52 min

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