Spring 2009, vice Published a blog post, infamous even by its own standards, titled "Bad Department!—We Hire a Liar." An employee began chatting with Kari Ferrell, the magazine's new executive assistant; after she began asking him for help via instant messages, he reportedly Googled her and discovered she was in Salt Lake On the city police's wanted list. Rather than simply firing Ferrell, vice She was exposed online and admitted that a cursory search should probably be done before hiring someone with "less desirable characteristics, such as five outstanding warrants for fraud." oops! Read it now, and you may find that the article offers unrepentant confession in a prescient way, anticipating that in the future, any sin or failure can be changed if the content is good enough.

Which is to say: The fact that Ferrell hasn't profited from her own story until now illustrates how naïve or even easily shocked we were once, and how we've since come to view brazen outrageous behavior as normal. In 2009, Ferrell's unfortunate tendency toward pathological lying and petty plagiarism made her an internet star for several weeks. She has become material for countless people Gawker Updated and detailed introduction observer She was known as "The Hipster Liar" before she ended up serving time in prison and changing her name to escape her past. Instead, think of Billy McFarland of Fyre Festival fame, who was jailed in 2018 for defrauding investors of more than $26 million and who is a rapper and Donald Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. ·The bridge between Donald Trump. And Anna Delvey, who was convicted in 2019 of impersonating an art world heiress to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars, has gained more than 1 million followers on Instagram since her incarceration and was recently featured in dancing with the stars Among them, the court ruled that the anklet she wore was very conspicuous.

Read: Scams are winning

You can understand why Ferrell might think it's time for a comeback. her new memoir, you will never believe mewith subtitle A life full of lies, second attempts, and things I should only tell my therapistas if to sublimate the narrator’s unreliability into an honest and unfiltered account. And, in most cases, it works. By her own admission, Ferrell was a gifted communicator and manipulator of words, charming, garrulous, relaxed, and intimate. By any measure, her story is compelling. She told us she still doesn't know why she did what she did: deceiving her closest friends into cashing bad checks, leaving one of them with thousands of dollars in bail; lying about having terminal cancer; she wrote them notes, Draw easy points by inviting them to "throw a hot dog down my hall." (Her Instagram handle is still "hotdoghandjobs.") But she's at least willing to consider it—and these days, that's probably all we can ask for.

In the spring of 2009, New York was still in the shadow of the financial crisis, and profiteering and fraud had become a basic tradition in the United States. The collapse of the global economy had fostered a hedonistic nihilism among many recent graduates, and Ferrell took advantage of this (minuscule, as it turned out). But there wasn't that much happening online yet—this was the era after Myspace normalized online connectivity and before Instagram turned creative self-branding into a viable career—which helps explain why a little guy from Brooklyn was exposed . People are fascinated by a con artist with a prominent chest tattoo. back observer's Doree Shafrir filmed a lengthy feature on Ferrell, revealing her history of cheating on friends and lovers she became obsessed with Gawker, Gothamistas well as other New York-area publications. Hers is the origin story of an enduring generational cliché: irresponsible, ink-stained millennials obsessed with petty theft and shameless self-mythology, all for avocado toast and a Victorian email address. (Remember Hannah Horvath in girlsQuietly stealing the cash her parents left for the hotel maid? )

Ferrell resists this lazy stereotype. She insists that she is and always will be her own person. The first few chapters of her memoir feel like the basics of a scam, an attempt to easily analyze how she might have been led astray. Adopted from South Korea as a baby and raised by devoted parents, she recalls that household items in her home were often purchased in installments. When Ferrell was two years old, her parents converted to Mormonism and the family moved to Salt Lake City. Ferrell praised the Sunday service for providing her with what she described as a "master class in manipulation," and that a doctor who put her on a diet as a child inadvertently taught her to lie (to her parents, About what she ate that day) ). She wrote that as a teenager, she, like her friends, shoplifted from big-box stores with gusto, but was once held at gunpoint for stealing a Sidekick from an acquaintance's sister.

Of the first scam she orchestrated in Utah when she was 18, Ferrell writes, "It all happened." Marked by Charlie, her "talented, emotionally mature... caring, trusting" boyfriend at the time; The scam was for him to cash her check at his bank and transfer the funds to her (she did not have the money in her account). That's it. After getting the first $500 from Charlie, Ferrell repeated the scheme with other friends and acquaintances, sometimes tricking new people into paying off old ones when the checks bounced. "I did not steal money for drugs," she wrote. "I stole money in the hope that people wouldn't forget me." I'm no therapist, but it's hard not to psychoanalyze Ferrell's behavior: the need to feel loved and cared for, combined with the urge to lie and steal, forced Those closest to her reject her worldview in ways that ultimately affirm her. When she was arrested for check fraud, identity fraud, and forgery, she was surprised at how beautiful her mug shot looked and wondered if she could buy it as a high-resolution print. She then convinced another friend to pay bail and then fled town when a group of victims knocked on the door and demanded their money back.

Read: Millennial burnout is playing out on TV

Ferrell fled Utah for New York, where she dreamed of working vice Or some other idealized cult brand. At first, she wanted to change her ways. But, she wrote, she "struggles with how to be good in a world that punishes good people." Mr. Rogers always said to 'find the helpers' in times of turmoil, but every time I found them, they were kicked in the face by someone richer and more ambitious. ” Still, she insists, “I don’t want to blame the world for how I look. She regularly lasered men at parties and concerts, sending them sexually aggressive messages and then extracting everything she could from them. She reportedly offered VIP passes to friends as a way to to bomb her friends if they show resistance, she occasionally tells them she has terminal cancer or a psychotic ex-boyfriend who threatens her, or that she's pregnant (not everything is in the book - I rely on others. Source. ) “I could have gone. anywhere Find my score, but I like to shit where I eat," Ferrell wrote. This ultimately led to her downfall - when her photos first appeared online, it wasn't hard for gossip bloggers to find someone who knew her People. Some even have their own Ferrell stories.

A strong personal brand helps millennial internet celebrities; not so much for scammers. Given that subprime loans were worth $1.3 trillion in 2007, or that Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme lost $18 billion before being caught in 2008, you might wonder why people were so concerned about Ferrell at the time. Call what you do so fascinating. The reality is that the loss of an institution's funds can lead to feelings of frustration and apathy. The betrayal of being mugged by a friend, a lover, or a hipster with a pixie cut is different—more intimate, less predictable. . Couple this dynamic with the revelation that Ferrell was trying to scam people over little things like Concorde flight DVDs and taxi fares, and all the ridiculous, small-scale ingredients of a true Internet spectacle.

If you remember, the title of Ferrell's memoir was: you will never believe mewe probably shouldn't - there are enough things she seems to ignore or gloss over, and her account is best viewed as an interpretation of events rather than a historical record. But the way she attempts candor, reflection, self-analysis and judgment is commendable. Her inability to control her worst impulses seemed to cause her considerable pain, so much so that when she was eventually arrested, she wrote that she was pictured smiling - "an expression of pure relief". Of all the notorious, shameless liars who came after her, not one of them tried, because she had to deal with need The psychology behind the art of deceiving others and stealing. To do this, consider you will never believe me A job worth waiting for.