Hype by Gabrielle Bluestone is a slightly misleading, incredibly rambling, but ultimately enjoyable book.
The subtitle of Hype is “How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists Are Taking Over the Internet — and Why We’re Following.” As someone who has done a fair bit of work around the topic of scams in my day job, both in terms of raising awareness of specific scams and trying to each people how to avoid online scams, I’ve become very interested in the general topic of scams. I felt like having a better understanding of how and why people fall for online scammers would help me in my work, as well as making for some interesting reading material.
Unfortunately, this book is about 80% focused on Fyre Festival and Fyre Media CEO Billy McFarland’s pre- and post-Fyre businesses.
Don’t get me wrong. Fyre is an interesting story, but since Bluestone not only wrote about Fyre for Vice Media AND served as Executive Producer for the Fyre Netflix doc, it feels a bit like she’s decided she’s gonna ride the Fyre train for as long as she can. And that’s fine. But if your book is going to be primarily about Fyre, say it’s a book about Fyre. Don’t sell me a book that’s supposed to be about why we fall for fraudulent influencers and then tell me stories about how McFarland spent so much of his company’s money on private jet flights that they couldn’t afford decent office furniture.
The other issue with the book is that it just rambles on and on. Bluestone throws in all these interesting anecdotes and side diversions, and while they’re entertaining, sometimes you’ll have been reading about something for 10 pages and suddenly ask “Wait, but what does this really have to do with the topic of the book?” These’s a whole section about how Bloomberg reneged on his deal to employ his presidential campaign workers for the entire election cycle. It’s loosely tied into the subject of online scammers because Bloomberg did a meme campaign with an agency that also worked with McFarland. But it’s just not relevant to online scams.
Hype also regularly references other prominent scams without really getting into them in detail. The description on the book jacket talks about the Juicero juicer, but the book never really talks about that scam. Theranos gets a couple passing mentions, mainly in relation to how big-money investors get behind scams like Fyre and Theranos. It’s left to the reader to actually know why these two stories are relevant.
The Flaw of a Narrow Focus
So if I enjoyed reading Hype, why am I upset that it was so narrowly focused on Fyre Festival?
I feel like most of the scams profiled in this book where targeted at a very specific demographic — younger Millennials and older Gen Z people with a bit of disposable income and a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out). For those of us over the age of 35, it’s easy to read a book like this, chuckle knowingly to ourselves, and say “Well, I would never fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars for an event just because an Instagram model told me it was going to be awesome.”
While we tut-tut at the foolishness of “kids these days”, we ignore our own weaknesses: The “surefire” investments we sink our money into because a trusted family member also invested. The multi-level marketing schemes we join because our former high school classmate convinced us we could be a “girl boss” just like her. The too-good-to-be-true Kickstarter we back.
It’s not just the young people who fall for the “hype.” There’s no magical age where you’re suddenly immune to the lure of FOMO, even if what you’re afraid of missing out on might change. An older person can get just as caught up in the idea of finally paying off their debt, retiring early, or leaving something of worth behind for their kids as a young person can get in the idea of a once-in-a-lifetime trip with their friends. And we’re all guilty of getting excited about a new project from someone we admire, whether it’s a super cool beach concert by our favorite musical act or a new video game from the designers who created our favorite 90s games.
Hype lets us indulge in guilt-free schadenfreude because most of the victims of Fyre Festival and similar scams don’t suffer any lasting harm. They lose some fun-money, have to eat a crappy cheese sandwich in a crappy tent in the Bahamas*, and feel embarrassed.
But other types of online scams ruin peoples’ lives. A financial con artist can talk a victim out of their life’s savings. A catfisher can not only take their victim’s money, but also steal their trust in potential lovers. Identity theft can mess up your credit score and waste hours of your life as you try to clean up after the scammers.
So sure, it’s wild to read about how McFarland strung along investors, employees, and event attendees. But I don’t feel like this book paints an accurate picture of what the average online scam looks like, who perpetuates them, and who falls for them.
No Real Answers
Perhaps my biggest frustration with Hype is that it doesn’t answer the question laid out in the subtitle. Why ARE we following online scammers? Bluestone touches a bit on the appeal of online influencers and the power of influencer marketing, but I don’t feel like she laid out a persuasive answer for why we are so, well, influenced by influencers. What is it that makes us feel like if we just buy the same swimsuit a model is wearing, we’ll be as pretty as she is? Why do we believe that we’ll actually get to hang out with our online idols if we attend the festival they’re promoting?
FOMO only explains so much. How do these influencers wield FOMO? Why do we fall for it? Why do we continue to fall for it even after we’ve been burned? After Fyre, McFarland started a new company, NYC VIP Access, allegedly selling tickets to exclusive events like the Met Gala. He marketed it towards the Fyre mailing list. People who had fallen for Fyre also fell for NYC VIP Access. Bluestone doesn’t talk to any of these victims to learn why they didn’t see the red flags in what they were being promised. We don’t find out if falling for not one, but two, scams has made them more wary of how they pursue the sort of unique experiences Millennial and Gen Z consumers seem to want.
I felt like Bluestone really could have talked less about what was happening at the Fyre Media offices, and more about parasocial relationships. How do influencers convince us that we’re their friends, not their audience? How do they curate and wield a sense of “authenticity” while living a life most of us could never hope to afford? What convinces us to throw common sense to the wayside and go after something we desperately want to be real?
And how do scammers and con artists wield these same tools against us? How do people gain our trust? How do they figure out what we want in life, and convince us that their scheme is what’s going to help us realize our dreams?
Bluestone doesn’t answer these questions.
Who Will Enjoy This Book?
So who should read this book? Well, if you can’t get enough Fyre coverage, you’ll probably enjoy Hype. Although, that said, I don’t know if there’s anything in here that wasn’t already in the documentaries and news coverage, since I didn’t personally deep dive into Fyre (I was too busy following the QuadrigaCX drama, which involves a mysterious death and missing cryptocurrency). If you’re curious about the dark side of influencer marketing, you’ll probably find some things of interest in here. But if you’re hoping to protect yourself or your family and friends from falling for the latest online investment scam or the newest MLM, you won’t find much to help you truly understand why we trust scammers.
*Although honestly, reading about how hot the tents were and how they were plying people with free booze and no food, it’s a wonder no one got seriously ill or died from how poorly-managed the event was.
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