Social media is built on deception. On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and especially Tinder, people present at best a curated version of their “best self” and at worst a complete confection, a candy floss construction that disintegrates on contact with reality. It’s perhaps this constant exposure to low-level lying that has led to the growing cultural fascination with con artists who take the invention to its extreme.
The TV shows that feature these characters are polished presentations featuring plenty of stolen luxury; I think of them as Scam Glam, encouraging the viewer to revel in a mixture of shock, schadenfreude and a soupçon of sneaking admiration.
Netflix is home to the two biggest Scam Glam hits, Inventing Anna – the fictionalised retelling of how Anna Sorokin stole her way through New York by turning herself into the fake socialite Anna Delvey – and The Tinder Swindler – a documentary about Shimon Hayut who tricked a series of women into believing he was Simon Leviev, the billionaire son of a diamond mogul, officially changing his name in the process.
While the crimes of Sorokin and Leviev relied on old-fashioned methods – she faked documents and deposited fraudulent cheques while he extracted cash from women in an all-too-familiar combination of Ponzi scheme and romance scam – they both used Instagram’s hall of mirrors to burnish their new personas.
Tinder was where Leviev found his victims and WhatsApp was where he spun them his tales of being in grievous danger and unable to use his own credit cards to extract himself from it. But the reason they believed he was living the lavish lifestyle he presented was in large part because it was documented on Instagram.
Similarly, Sorokin was able to invent Anna Delvey by being pictured with the “right” people at the “right” places. She posted pictures of herself at exclusive restaurants, in luxurious hotels and admiring the New York skyline from penthouses. The online fantasy provided a backstop for the real-world fraud. Sorokin seemed no less plausible than the countless other “socialites” and “influencers” posting the same images with the same empty “thankful” captions.
Instagram has also played a part in Sorokin and Leviev’s attempts at reinventing and repositioning themselves now their previous personas are spent. Sorokin revived her account after being released from prison in February 2021 and it’s still going – even as she’s detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, fighting deportation to Germany. In an interview with The New York Times’ Style section, she claimed:
“I always saw my social media as satire. It was never meant to be serious. Part of me throwing my story around and using my voice to put more public awareness on the nonsensical things inmates have to go through every day.”
Convicted and jailed for fraud in both Israel and Finland – in cases unrelated to the events covered in The Tinder Swindler – Leviev recently told Inside Edition that he “[is] not the monster everybody has created” and claimed the women “weren’t conned”.
His Instagram account has disappeared again but while still live it continued to feature pictures of his apparently lavish lifestyle with model Kate Konlin, who stood by him both literally and figuratively in the Inside Edition interview.
Leviev has subsequently joined Cameo, the site where people can request personalised video messages, charging $300 a pop for his efforts, and signed with a talent manager. Sorokin is working on a documentary, a podcast, and a book about her time in prison. Their victims are not given the same attention or opportunities.
Even as the characters they created with the help of social media are deconstructed in front of millions of viewers, Sorokin and Leviev continue to benefit from them. In Sorokin’s case, the Netflix production meant a $350,000 fee as a script consultant, of which $198,000 was used to pay restitution while the rest went on legal fees.
Scam Glam stories aren’t easy parables for the social media age. Instead of encouraging us to question the broader culture of deception, they present characters like Sorokin and Leviev as outliers and encourage derision rather than sympathy for their victims. It’s too easy to smugly conclude that you wouldn’t be fooled.
In Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw wrote: “The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she’s treated.” Instagram provided the bulk of the social proof required for Sorokin and Leviev to sell their characters. They seemed to be treated as rich, so people believed that they were rich.
Spotlit by Netflix, these scammers are once again able to seem special. They’ve been given a new lease of life as “characters”. The moral of these stories is murky and a quick scroll through Instagram reveals a host of wannabe Sorokins and Levievs. Among all those “best selves” there are a lot of worst-case scenarios lurking – with the lies piling up.
Mic Wright is a freelance writer and journalist based in London. He writes about technology, culture and politics
Mic Wright is a freelance writer and journalist based in London. He writes about technology, culture and politics
