Hype
How Scammers, Grifters, Con Artists and Influencers Are Taking Over the Internet – and Why We're Following
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Hype
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Narrated by:
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Eileen Stevens
About this listen
From 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.
"Scams are hot right now, and Bluestone covers the hottest here." – Booklist
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?
Drawing from scientific research, marketing campaigns, and exclusive documents and interviews, Vice reporter Gabrielle Bluestone delves into the irresistible hype that fuels our social media ecosystem, whether it’s from the trusted influencers that peddled Fyre or the consumer reviews that sold Juicero. A cultural examination that is as revelatory as it is relevant, Hype pulls back the curtain on the manipulation game behind the never-ending scam season—and how we as consumers can stop getting played.
©2021 Gabrielle Bluestone (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Juicy, sharp, savage and wildly entertaining." (Cat Marnell, New York Times best-selling author of How to Murder Your Life)
“A deep dive into the depressing world of grifters, bullsh*t artists, plagiarists and long con experts turbocharged by the internet - and what, if anything, separates those scammers from some of our most respected captains of industry. Fyre Festival, Bluestone makes clear, may have been a low-water mark so far in the history of empty hype - but the tide, as ever, just keeps rolling out.” (Anna Merlan, author of Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power)
"Scams are hot right now, and Bluestone covers the hottest here." (Booklist)
What listeners say about Hype
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- amanda
- 02-11-21
A brilliant listen!
Such a great book - perfectly captures the madness of digital marketing and the chaos of growing a business online in 2021!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Answer
- 17-08-23
Loved it!
Great book! I was nearly put off by the negative review but I'm glad I bought it, was just what I expected it to be. Most chapters start by using Fyre as their example before moving onto different discussions within each subject. If you are fascinated by the likes of Elizabeth Holmes and Caroline Calloway, you'll enjoy this book.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Tim Watson
- 16-02-22
The worst book I’ve bought on Audible
This is a truly awful book that lacks narrative, structure and doesn’t deliver on its title or synopsis. Ironically, Hype turned out to be exactly what it claimed to be focusing on, and is the literal equivalent of ‘con artists, grifters and snake oil salesmen’. This book is not an ‘eye-opening look’ into their world, it’s a poorly hashed together re-work of Fyre; it takes the scraps of the cutting room floor of the Netflix documentary and painfully stitches them together into a 10-hour, unstructured, mono-tone ramble.
You might think I’m being harsh here, but I’m not. If like me you are drawn to the promise of finding out the secret of ‘why we can’t stop falling for them’, you can skip the entire book. For two reasons – 1) the book NEVER tells you this, instead it painfully describes what con-artists are doing without any deeper dive into their actions, which is then repeated again in a later chapter, and – 2) the book is exactly about this type of fake promise. Just as Fyre sold tickets for a festival that didn’t exist, this book sells itself on a narrative that doesn’t exist. It is possibly the most ironic piece of work I’ve ever seen.
There is absolutely no structure to this book. 10 hours of listening to a dull, mono-tone, heavy American-accent woman is hard, but even more difficult when there are only 8 chapters, some hours long, others 20 minutes. It’s impossible to navigate and doesn’t have a narrative. Instead, you are wished and washed from one observation to another description of the Fyre festival.
75% of this book is about Fyre and McFarland. There is no analysis. No creativity, no secret sharing, nothing to learn at all. Just 10 hours of listening to what was editing out of the documentary.
Why you might ask did I listen to all of it? Firstly, I have a very long drive everyday and need something to make the time pass, albeit the commute felt far longer with this drivel. Secondly, I had to listen to more of the story to leave a review. And this was important as I don’t want you to waste your time or money on this truly terrible book.
I urge you not to buy this book. It does not deliver on any of its promises. Its poorly written, poorly narrated, has no value add, no structure, no narrative and is just an over-extended, 10-hr observation of McFarland and Fyre festival.
Watch the Netflix documentary. Paint a wall. Go for a long walk in the rain without a coat. Do anything else you can think of, other than buying and listening to Hype, as it literally is a lot of Hype about nothing.
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1 person found this helpful