Georgia Balmer
Who’s going to believe a con artist? Everyone, if they are good.
The current onslaught of true crime dramas and documentaries would have us believe that everyone in our lives is out to fool us. From Bad Vegan and The Tinder Swindler to Inventing Anna, pop culture’s fascination with scammers is clearly as evergreen as it always has been, if our current Netflix viewing is anything to go by.
‘Scammer Season’ was ushered in with the latter of the three, Inventing Anna spawning memes and Tik Tok sounds within days of its Netflix release. The now-iconic line, “I don’t have time for this, I don’t have time for you” sprawled in Julia Garner’s mock-eastern European blend of valley girl vocal fry has been used over 15000 times by Tik Tok creators, whilst the series itself was watched for 3.3 billion minutes in its second week alone. Obsessed is an understatement, but why are so many of us gripped by tales of Carny-esque cons?
The Cult-Following of Anna Delvey
I first fell down the Anna Delvey rabbit hole when I read Jessica Pressler’s 2018 article Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It, the inspiration for the Shondaland production. Like other iconic articles in The Cut – I’m looking at you, self-proclaimed ‘scammer’ Caroline Calloway – I was fully gripped.
“By October of that year, Miss Delvey was a popular Halloween costume and had achieved greater infamy than her con had ever allowed.”
Previously dismissed as a boring non-story by financial journalists and the broadsheets, Jessica weaved the wonderful world of Delvey, born Sorokin, and told a delectable tale. By October of that year, Miss Delvey was a popular Halloween costume and had achieved greater infamy than her con had ever allowed.
The obvious question is how did she get away with it? This is then proceeded by the far more important question – would I have been fooled by it too? It is our own conceited and self-inflated belief that we would have been smarter, more cunning, and more knowing than the ‘fools’ who are taken in by these scammers that are at the crux of why we binge these shows. There is a morbid curiosity in seeing just how trusting and naïve our peers can be, and with a good con, there is then a binge-worthy story ready to be picked up by an enterprising producer. Without the clarity and smugness of hindsight, however, would any of us really be able to avoid the con?
So, What Was The Con?
Anna was no Ponzi: her plans to open a Soho House-esque members club for artists, which is surely just Soho House, never got much further than a trickle of early investors and some work lunches. But that was never the interesting part of the story. The intrigue lies in how she dreamed her way into the elite world of New York high society.
“With the confidence of a European princess plucked from another time, Delvey convinced all the right people in New York”
A notoriously tight-knit circle filled with impenetrable old money families, it costs to be an ‘it’ girl in New York. For Anna Sorokin, born in a satellite town on the outskirts of Moscow to a truck driver and a shop worker, the Upper Eastside was a long cry away. For Anna Delvey, an oil heiress from Cologne, not so far.
It seemed to matter to few that Delvey’s German was barely better than a high schoolers, because as an acquaintance pointed out, “there are so many trust-fund kids running around, everyone is your best friend, and you don’t know a thing about anyone.”
With the confidence of a European princess plucked from another time, Delvey convinced all the right people in New York that she had the cash flow to foot her lifestyle. Her home, a suite at the newly opened 11 Howard, was the perfect spot for an heiress in the know. It was also a newly opened establishment and so relieved were they to already have a long term resident, and one of such perceived social standing, that nobody took any credit card details on check-in, allowing Anna to rack up over £30,000 on her room.
This convincing air of confidence encouraged others to trust Delvey with similar boldness. Many businesses, banks, friends, and restaurants accepted the promise of a wire transfer in lieu of immediate payment. Anna often used forged documents to sell the lie. Then it all went wrong.
Why Are Scams so Addictive?
This is where Inventing Anna’s most interesting facet comes into play. Garner’s gradual escalation into hysterics as the con runs away from Delvey perfectly captures why this story is so addictive. Garner plays Delvey with a childish lilt to her actions; we are clearly watching somebody play at being the elite. Her classist put-downs, whilst receiving shocked laughter and amusement from both viewers and the characters on screen, seem clunky and unnatural coming from a true socialite. As we see Anna swan around on yachts, dismiss New York ‘it’ restaurants like Carbone as being for poor people, and maintain her persona whilst it all falls to pieces on a trip to Marrakech, the character becomes increasingly fake and caricature-esque.
“This switch between personas, Delvey to Sorokin, is one we never got to see as the real story played out”
As fun as it is to watch the scammer succeed and live a life of excess few will ever be granted access to, seeing Delvey’s panic as her mini-empire comes crumbling down sits in such contrast to the polished and snotty Anna we later see in prison and court that it is hard not to be transfixed. This switch between personas, Delvey to Sorokin, is one we never got to see as the real story played out, Anna always showed a strong public face, even when sitting in Rikers Island.
The moments of weakness shown by Garner’s portrayal of Anna are what make the show worthwhile and highlight Delvey’s talents in pulling the whole thing off for so long. Anna never achieved her dream of founding a private members club, but her newfound notoriety seems a far better prize, if not at a mighty cost – Delvey is currently facing deportation, having spent four years in prison for her fraudulent crimes.
“Maybe the victims do deserve to shoulder a slither of the blame.”
As a series, Inventing Anna shows only a snippet of the story and bizarrely makes villains out of some of Delvey’s victims. Rachel Williams in particular, the Vanity Fair employee who used company credit cards to pay for THAT Marrakech trip, has been loudly vocal about her ‘inaccurate’ portrayal in the show. Yet, maybe the victims do deserve to shoulder a slither of the blame. There is no such thing as a free lunch – after all, Anna eventually had to pay for hers – and her friends, who lapped up her generosity, should have known there would come a time when they too would have to pay for theirs. But maybe that’s hindsight talking.
Netflix has given us a near-perfect true crime show, paying Anna over $300,000 for her life rights, taking an already gripping story and allowing us to see behind the perfectly draped, and probably stolen, curtain. They may have changed the narrative in parts, but the show dissects why Anna’s story is so fascinating, mirroring the public’s own obsession with scammers, as Jessica’s character writes the article that made Delvey’s name. It’s an unusual but intriguing narrative structure and one that makes it easy to think you wouldn’t have fallen for the act if faced with Delvey at a New York bar or gallery opening. Chances are though, we all would have believed her too.
Featured image courtesy of Michael Discenza on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.
