Topic: Don’t hate the influencer, hate their idiot followers.
Anonymous A started this discussion 3 weeks ago#135,942
Beauty and health scams, get rich scams, alpha male scams. At some point people need to develop basic reasoning skills and own their behaviors. If some influencer persuades you to part with your money or hit yourself in the face with a hammer, fuck you.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 1 hour later[^][v]#1,443,566
Should I have not sent money to Joel Osteen to clear my body of all my sins? We did this over the phone and I sent him my CC information, now I'm worried.
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 25 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,443,570
Scams are ultimately lies and lies for the most part boil down to 50/50 coin flips. They're either telling you the truth that they care about you and won't betray you or they're lying. Competent or not, everyone falls for lies because to interact with and live amongst other people is to be required to trust them to some degree. People know when you trust them or not and will choose to not interact with you (or worse actively harm you) if you don't offer them your trust. After all, what is a person you don't trust at all? They're an enemy. The average person becoming more competent would only mean scams become more complex. Would you blame a man who gets cheated on by his wife of 10 years? He had every reason to believe she'd be faithful but at the end of the day she betrayed him. In this game of life we will influence others and be influenced in turn. It is regrettable some of that influence will be gained through deception but it's human nature.
> Scams are ultimately lies and lies for the most part boil down to 50/50 coin flips. They're either telling you the truth that they care about you and won't betray you or they're lying. Competent or not, everyone falls for lies because to interact with and live amongst other people is to be required to trust them to some degree. People know when you trust them or not and will choose to not interact with you (or worse actively harm you) if you don't offer them your trust. After all, what is a person you don't trust at all? They're an enemy. The average person becoming more competent would only mean scams become more complex. Would you blame a man who gets cheated on by his wife of 10 years? He had every reason to believe she'd be faithful but at the end of the day she betrayed him. In this game of life we will influence others and be influenced in turn. It is regrettable some of that influence will be gained through deception but it's human nature.
I don’t disagree with this. I’m pointing specifically to parasocial relationships with online gurus who lie about their credentials and who are easily exposed as frauds.
A lot of these guys are lying toddlers. You have King Ratatouille or whatever who committed rapes and claims he beats up 10-30 guys at a time, you have an ex con who beat up a dude at a gym and is headed back to prison, and the Liver King whose Paul Bunyan beard didn’t hide the effects of rippers and steroid bloat.