After all, nothing had happened to Elon Musk, who, Ms.

Nothing came of Spling, but nothing happened to Billy when he once again stiffed his investors: 'If he didn't deliver on his promises, nothing bad would happen' turned out to be true over and over. It was Spling, which was supposed to be a platform for serious people to share important links with friends, but which devolved into goofy posts with titles like '10 Amazing Boat Fails' that were like 'America's Funniest Home Videos,' except that the people who fell overboard or capsized often got seriously injured, on camera. When these lies were exposed, Magnises disappeared.īilly emerged unscathed, and ready to invent something new. He claimed early on that he had 12,000 subscribers when that got him some media attention, he upped the count to 30,000 and finally 100,000. To pull in investors for this product, he threw lavish parties (on credit or with other people's money). in all his successively bigger and more disastrous ventures, beginning, after he dropped out of college, with Magnises, a credit card whose only distinguishing features were that it was made of metal and cost $250 a year. There's no way to fix a broken crayon, so if the girl had believed him, he'd have had to come back with a lie about how this particular shade couldn't be repaired. 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. One thing that must be said for Gabrielle Bluestone: Her timing is impeccable the bizarre doings of internet users is the hottest topic around.

Hype bluestone