On July 8, 1849, James Gordon Bennett of New York newspaper introduced readers to William Thompson, a man of “polite appearance”—and apparently endlessly attractive—who was arrested for showing strangers his watch. “Do you trust me to deliver your watch until tomorrow?” Thompson would ask his score after striking up a conversation and wooing them with his charm. Thus, a 19th-century mass-market broadsheet coined the term “confident man,” which emissary began to use quite freely in its pages. (And which you may have noticed more recently in the title of Maggie Haberman‘S aptly named Donald Trump story.) As one emissary The editorial later stated of Thompson, “He is a con man, a con man, a delusional man, a con man, a mocker!”
Those words can be easily described George Santos, conductor with a fictitious background, accused Burberry scarf thief/dying dog scammer, and all-round prodigy who lied to get into the halls of Congress last November , only to be exposed as a blatant scammer. in one headline moment at the State of the Union on Tuesday, freshman representatives from Queens were met with disgust during a clash with Mitt Romney. “You don’t belong here,” Romney reportedly said loudly, certainly speaking on behalf of a large number of American voters.
Santos stands out as one of the most epic scams the press has faced. At the same time, his story is just the latest in a rich set of bizarre revelations that have made headlines in the media over the past few years. Notorious topics like this have attracted news consumers as long as there is news to consume, because that’s age-old. emissary article can attest. But in the age of the web, they’ve taken on a life of their own, paying lucrative dividends to the stores that take them out into the world.
From Hipster Crusher and Tinder SwindlerARRIVE Dirty John and Worst roommateARRIVE Billy McFarland, Elizabeth Holmes, Anna Delvey, and many more notorious names than we can list in this post, con artist stories became hot IPs, attracted large audiences and squeezed their way into the book-deal system -streaming-series-podcasts. In this latest installment of Inside the hive, Maggie Coughlan And Joe Pompeo examines the recent history of the horror genre, breaking down how these blockbusters work in the news business and Hollywood.
