More influencers in cults, the Vatican's metaverse & one-click deceptions 👀🍿🧃

Also if Goop's Conference got religious

Hi Wrecklings! Authoring The Wreck List has made me realize that joining a cult actually is, apparently more common than I’d have ever imagined. Meanwhile, contrary to what I was warned about as a kid, the Bermuda Triangle has never been a problem. Then again, school also taught us how to square dance but not how to file taxes, so...

Anyway! Here’s this week’s scamdal:

• “A Top YouTube Beauty Guru Has an Ugly History of Peddling Pseudoscience Bullshit”- Michelle Phan appears to have possibly, maybe joined a cult (no, not referencing her crypto shilling) which I guess for those familiar with her career, isn’t surprising.

• “Inside the colossal failure of VENN, the ‘MTV of video games’”- This piece is WILD, a real corporate 🗑️🔥, if you’re into those kinds of things.

• “Bolt Built $11 Billion Payment Business on Inflated Metrics and Eager Investors”- What’s going on with these one-click payment startups? Here’s an article about the shady background of Fast’s founder— which was shut down less than two months after the NPR piece ran.

• “I Went To Former Fitness Influencer Brittany Dawn’s Conference And I Guess I Understand Her Now”- This basically sounds like the religious, less fancy version of the Goop Conference. Which, Fast Company did an amazing piece on a few years ago— and then again a year after that when the conference “got even weirder, but somehow more professional.”

• “It's a Hot Mess': Why Influencers Are Ditching Bella Thorne’s OnlyFans Company”- Explaining that your “mom runs day-to-day operations and is our creative director” is a really strange way of not taking accountability for a company you founded.

• “A Texas Tale of Tinder, Millions in Stolen Crypto and Murder”- Let’s 👏 not 👏 send 👏 strangers 👏 off 👏 the 👏 internet 👏 money 👏 anymore!

• “Patriots Traded Jimmy Garoppolo Because He Allegedly Got Owner Robert Kraft Girlfriend Ricki Noel Lander Pregnant”- Love when tips spilled on DeuxMoi get coverage. Who knows if any of this is true but the Patriots seem to have a penchant for scandal.

• “Miami Grand Prix felt ‘like the Fyre Festival of F1 races’: attendees”- Idk if one of the Spice Girls really almost got run over by cops but the response to this tweet still has me chuckling two days later.

Amanda Mull @amandamull

so american that we’ve found a way to involve the cops in the F1 race. They almost ran over a spice girl

Georgia is a Verb @georgiaisaverb

@amandamull If it had been Victoria? Squash Spice.

• “Vatican Offers, Mysteriously Rescinds Interview About Pope’s Metaverse Plans”- From a former publicist' perspective, this is 100% the case of a PR team trying to buy time… Why they’re doing this, is the question. Looks like you can get cold feet in the Metaverse.

• “Dancing in the Name of the Lord The ‘cult’ claims about a TikTok-famous set of performers shocked everyone — except L.A.’s dancefluencer community.”- We flagged this Gawker piece a couple months ago and the buzz about 7M have gained in traction since— including pieces in The Daily Beast and The Daily Mail.

• “Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control: Inside Shein’s Sudden Rise”- I’m proud I haven’t ordered from Shein yet but there’s clearly something amiss if their prices are so suspiciously low.

• “Defamation suit: Influencer Rachel Wong fails in bid to find woman, who accused her of infidelity, in contempt”- This story is… messy messy. Much like with the Depp vs. Heard trial, seems like there are just a lot of skeletons being dragged out of closets for the public to see. No winners, everyone loses.

• “Russian influencer could be jailed over nude Instagram photoshoot by sacred tree in Bali”- All these bad choices but luckily isn’t being tried for treason… 🥁💥 So sorry, I’ll see myself out.

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More Serious Stories

We realize some of these can be triggering for some readers, so feel free to skip!

• “The Same Security Company For Dave Chappelle’s Show Also Oversaw The Deadly Astroworld And Route 91 Festivals”

• “NXIVM sex cult guru wants new judge to decide evidence-planting claim”

• “UK-born influencer Oli London, who identifies as Korean, clashes with Black host in fiery 'transracial' debate”

• “Israel: Turkish flight aborted as passengers get plane crash pics”

• “Gina. Rosanne. Guy. What do you do the day after you storm the Capitol?”

• Because the article title is gonna trip some email spam filters: this piece covers how the writer’s dad was in the cult that was featured in the Wild Wild Country documentary. The whole thing is INSANE but the part I remember most was the rumor about blended up beavers being put in the water supply to poison the Wasco County residents.

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P.S. While we’re obsessed with these stories, we don’t endorse any of these insane behaviors. 💋