Inside the Secret Sting Operations to Expose Celebrity Psychics
March 5, 2019 6:47 AM Subscribe
Are some celebrity mediums fooling their audience members by reading social media pages in advance? A group of online vigilantes is out to prove it. [NYT] Related recent Last Week Tonight segment on psychics.
Oh the skeptics, they have a fine hobby here, do need an editor for their excruciatingly dull web sites.
In the nineteenth century Houdini waged an almost totally successful war against psychics that were conning people out of life savings. There were few active psychics for decades. There is certainly a resurgence but are they more than a scuzzy form of entertainment? Are folks getting seriously ripped off? The bit I've seen on tv are pretty dreary and dull but not much more than other unscripted shows. As much as it rankles the 'shows' are just that, shows. Or are they using the shows to hook and seriously con some people?
posted by sammyo at 8:32 AM on March 5, 2019
In the nineteenth century Houdini waged an almost totally successful war against psychics that were conning people out of life savings. There were few active psychics for decades. There is certainly a resurgence but are they more than a scuzzy form of entertainment? Are folks getting seriously ripped off? The bit I've seen on tv are pretty dreary and dull but not much more than other unscripted shows. As much as it rankles the 'shows' are just that, shows. Or are they using the shows to hook and seriously con some people?
posted by sammyo at 8:32 AM on March 5, 2019
People are definitely getting taken advantage of outside the shows. It's like ghost hunters or psychics and that sort of thing, give it enough exposure and the minority of people who will fall for it will and become easy prey for local psychics and mediums and hucksters. For many of these parasites, they only need one or two victims to latch onto and they can start manipulating and bilking them. This sort of thing is despicable but it's amplified by the spotlight they get in media, there'd be fewer people who could get away with this type of scam ii simply wasn't part of the landscaping.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:46 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:46 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
As much as it rankles the 'shows' are just that, shows. Or are they using the shows to hook and seriously con some people?
The show psychics use the shows to promote their more lucrative tours, like a band that makes more money from touring than album sales. The tier below the show psychics are where the 'Dead Grandma Wants Me To Have Your Life Savings' types lurk. Those psychics that don't tour need a way of drawing you back month after month, so often invent strange metaphysical threats that only they can deal with. (That place is still around, if you can believe it!)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:37 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
The show psychics use the shows to promote their more lucrative tours, like a band that makes more money from touring than album sales. The tier below the show psychics are where the 'Dead Grandma Wants Me To Have Your Life Savings' types lurk. Those psychics that don't tour need a way of drawing you back month after month, so often invent strange metaphysical threats that only they can deal with. (That place is still around, if you can believe it!)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:37 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
> Oh the skeptics, they have a fine hobby here, do need an editor for their excruciatingly dull web sites.
A lot of debunkers these days seem content to believe that the pure force of reason in their arguments is sufficient, so they're bad at the sort of outreach that their opposition understands intuitively. There are some good communicators -- the Oh No, Ross & Carrie podcast is a fun debunking show that works pretty hard at avoiding terms like "scam" and "debunk" and in general try to make the part of their audience that might've fallen for a scam feel like they learned something rather than feel bad about being dumb. But it still suffers from another part of the outreach problem: The audience has to come to the podcast, it's not going to find them.
posted by ardgedee at 10:24 AM on March 5, 2019 [8 favorites]
A lot of debunkers these days seem content to believe that the pure force of reason in their arguments is sufficient, so they're bad at the sort of outreach that their opposition understands intuitively. There are some good communicators -- the Oh No, Ross & Carrie podcast is a fun debunking show that works pretty hard at avoiding terms like "scam" and "debunk" and in general try to make the part of their audience that might've fallen for a scam feel like they learned something rather than feel bad about being dumb. But it still suffers from another part of the outreach problem: The audience has to come to the podcast, it's not going to find them.
posted by ardgedee at 10:24 AM on March 5, 2019 [8 favorites]
These guys missed a golden opportunity to call themselves the Psychic Enemies Network.
posted by adamrice at 10:38 AM on March 5, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 10:38 AM on March 5, 2019 [9 favorites]
I initially misread the title as "...Celebrity Physicists".
Me, too!
These people still totally prey on the vulnerable. For a couple of years I lived above a storefront psychic--cut-rate-looking, on a street where, like, even a fancy yarn store/cafe couldn't make it due to the rents. If they weren't some sort of illegal operation, which I can't entirely rule out, they were making those rents on people coming in to get curses taken off them and the like. Ten years later, and they're still there.
posted by praemunire at 12:11 PM on March 5, 2019
Me, too!
These people still totally prey on the vulnerable. For a couple of years I lived above a storefront psychic--cut-rate-looking, on a street where, like, even a fancy yarn store/cafe couldn't make it due to the rents. If they weren't some sort of illegal operation, which I can't entirely rule out, they were making those rents on people coming in to get curses taken off them and the like. Ten years later, and they're still there.
posted by praemunire at 12:11 PM on March 5, 2019
I shared the John Oliver clip on Facebook, and received one interesting form of pushback.
The argument ran like this. Many Americans need some form of therapy, but can't access it due to a combination of how we finance health care, some cultural attitudes about mental health, bad masculinity, etc. So for some people these psychics serve as accessible mental health services.
Interesting idea.
posted by doctornemo at 4:36 PM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
The argument ran like this. Many Americans need some form of therapy, but can't access it due to a combination of how we finance health care, some cultural attitudes about mental health, bad masculinity, etc. So for some people these psychics serve as accessible mental health services.
Interesting idea.
posted by doctornemo at 4:36 PM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
The argument ran like this. Many Americans need some form of therapy, but can't access it due to a combination of how we finance health care, some cultural attitudes about mental health, bad masculinity, etc. So for some people these psychics serve as accessible mental health services.Lots of people need to lose weight, but lack the will power to restrict their calorie intake. Muggers take their disposable income so they can't indulge in junk food!
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:33 PM on March 5, 2019 [7 favorites]
Yeah, that line can go in a number of bad directions.
posted by doctornemo at 6:42 PM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 6:42 PM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
All mediums are frauds preying on the credulous.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:49 AM on March 6, 2019
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:49 AM on March 6, 2019
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I'm sorry, Brian Cox and Neil Degrasse Tyson!
posted by faceplantingcheetah at 7:37 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]