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I almost got scammed this week on Facebook Marketplace. I haven’t meaningfully used Facebook in years, and I’ve never used Marketplace, but I had a bunch of furniture to get rid of and Marketplace seemed like a more sustainable option than calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK, where my stuff — an IKEA kitchen table that I’ve had for 15 years, a very cute desk that wobbled incessantly, a bookshelf from a Williamsburg thrift store called Junk (fitting name!) that I once carried on my back for a mile because I was too broke for a cab — would inevitably end up in a landfill.
Someone expressed interest in the desk and then tried to trick me out of $300 in an elaborate Venmo ruse. I’m embarrassed to tell you how close I got to falling for it. Three hundred bucks is not $50,000, but I was still very ashamed of how well the psychological manipulation worked on me!
The experience led me to reread “Welcome to Scam World,” a recent piece by Steven Kurutz for the Times.
Living our lives online has bred a misplaced but necessary trust. It would be difficult to use TikTok, Uber and Gmail every day while believing that doing so creates a perilous risk. Many people “turn their brains off” when they go about their business on these apps and platforms, Ms. Tobac said, “because it is so stressful to consider that these interactions are potentially harming.”
The internet has blurred the lines between reality and deception, making it challenging to differentiate between legitimate interactions and scams. Kurutz goes on to write that the victims of internet fraud are more likely to be people who grew up online. Last year, 18- to 24-year-olds lost more money to scams than any other age group, according to the Better Business Bureau.
TikTok is rife with Gen Z-ers posting about how they fell for an ad promoting a deal for a trendy mirror, or applied to a fake position on a job site, or had their email hacked by scammers who then hijacked their PayPal account.
I’m surprised we don’t hear more about Facebook Marketplace fraud, given how popular the platform is among Gen Z. (Of note, all of the furniture I did sell was to Gen Zers.)
I told my mom, a boomer (non-derogatory!) who frequently uses Marketplace, about my incident. Her reply was: “I should’ve warned you about that.” The boomers may be alright, but I’m now afraid of the internet.
Today we’re talking about:
Why young people are “downloading Hinge for validation”
Dating app arch nemesis theory
The “you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me” meme,
The internet’s song of the summer
And the shirt of the summer
Jazz bros
“Quiet life travel”
Original Balm Dotcom (aka OG BTC)
#Unsexyproducts
Boyfriend blush
Ed Hardy resurgence
Plus everything else that happened this week in youth culture and what I’m buying/reading/listening to.
Btw, this edition goes a little deeper on culture trends, and a little lighter on style and beauty. Curious to hear if it resonates.
But first, my favorite TikTok of the week:
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