logo
TikTok's scam sleuth wants to show you how companies are cheating — in a fun way

TikTok's scam sleuth wants to show you how companies are cheating — in a fun way

CNN4 days ago

We live in the golden age of grift. Most of us can't go a day without at least one scammy text about an unpaid toll or a call from an unknown number with a shockingly human-like AI voice on the other side.
The scale of the scam onslaught feels like it's part of some Faustian bargain we all entered into: In exchange for the miracle of, like, access to all the world's knowledge and people in our pockets, all the world's knowledge and people similarly have access to us, including the hustlers and the con artists. But way more hustlers, con artists and grifters than any other generation of human beings on Earth has ever had to comprehend before, let alone fend off.
Thankfully, all the scam spam doesn't seem to have killed anyone's appetite for the grift as a genre. Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos con? I'll take a book, a podcast, a documentary and at least one serialized streaming project, please. Lifting the veil on a doomsday cult? I'm in, every day, and twice on Sundays. Never forget: We once had two dueling Fyre Festival documentaries on Hulu and Netflix.
OK, maybe I'm just a mark for tales of clever cons, exposed. This newsletter is, in part, an outlet for my own fascination with the business hype cycle, which tends to, you know, exaggerate the truth. Or straight-up lie.
But (thanks again to the miracle of the internet), I know that I'm not alone.
Alex Falcone, an LA-based comedian, is a fellow con connoisseur (a con-noisseur?). Through his TikTok channel, Falcone excels at the art of the two-minute explainer, tackling frauds big (AI) and small (white chocolate).
Falcone says he isn't a journalist, but he approaches his work with a similar hunger to peek behind the facade of a thing and expose it. Of his early foray into 'unfun facts,' Falcone says, he wanted to find the intersection of 'a little bit of a wet blanket, but you're OK afterwards… I don't like ruining people's day.'
He's hit a nerve on TikTok, where he has more than half a million followers and a popular recurring series called 'Is it a scam? Yep.' (The delivery here is crucial: 'Is-it-a-scamyep!') The schtick is fast-talking facts and plenty of jokes about the companies and people and concepts that are, in one way or another, selling a bill of goods.
I caught up with Falcone recently over Zoom to discuss the businesses of grift, comedy and journalism.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Nightcap: Can you tell me how you got on the scam beat?
Alex Falcone: I've always liked the scheme-y underbelly. My grandfather worked in a few different contexts in carnivals, but the bulk of his life he was a pitchman, setting up a table by the midway selling kitchen gadgets and magic tricks. My dad's first job was as a kid standing in the audience while his father demonstrated a magic trick then yelling, 'How did he do that? I'll take two!'
I met a con man when I was 16, and he taught me how to do card-cheating and pool-sharking stuff… and, like, mostly didn't use it for evil. I just like knowing how it works. It's sort of like the glass elevator where you see the mechanism behind it. Like, how am I being manipulated?
I was working on 'unfun facts,' which is like the opposite of a party trick. My party-ruiner is telling people something that's going to bum them out that they didn't know. And that, it turns out, had a lot of overlap with my interest in things that were slightly crime-y.
Nightcap: Why do you think people on TikTok have been so receptive to the scam series?
Falcone: I think everybody is vaguely aware that they're walking around in a haunted carnival all the time — that everybody is trying to take advantage of them.
If you're at a midway, then you know the basketball hoop is harder than other basketball hoops. Otherwise they wouldn't give you stuffed animals for making one free throw. Why is that? It's because it's 11 feet, and it's not perfectly round… and you know that it's wrong, but then it's still fun to be like, 'Oh, that's how you were getting me.'
Nightcap: Do you find yourself, or your audience, experiencing scam fatigue?
Falcone: So this is the trick. By slightly redefining what 'scam' means, it allows me to keep finding new ways to talk about things instead of just being bummed out.
Whenever I'm tired of talking about AI or crypto, I can do an episode on white chocolate.
Nightcap: Ugh, such a scam!
Falcone: It's disgusting! It was originally invented as a medical coating for pills. And then they were like, 'we can sell this because we have all this extra cocoa butter lying around, and we can mix it with palm oil, which we've cut down the rainforest to make, and now we have too much of it.'
Every step of that is terrifying, but also it tastes like cat vomit. So that's inherently funny.
That's my palate cleanser. I have an escape valve for a lot of this.
Actually, if you hadn't asked that, I would have asked you the same question… How do you avoid getting bummed out by this? Are all of your colleagues just sort of zombie-brained now?
Nightcap: There's a bit of zombie-brain going around. I will say I spend a good amount of time — like a shameful amount of time — disassociating on TikTok.
Falcone: I think that's great… There are a lot of problems with the way algorithms work, but one of the things that's great is you can just create an account with a new name, a fresh algorithm, and decide this algorithm is just for escapism.
I did a video about algorithms a while ago, and so as a demonstration I decided to make an account for videos about bunnies. In TikTok, it took me 15 minutes before the algorithm was just rabbits and nothing else… So that is one of the ways that I've kept myself sane — having multiple algorithms that I play with depending on my mood. Having a rabbit account as a side project is really fun.
Nightcap: You've covered AI hype and marketing a few times…
Falcone: It feels like there's an emperor-has-no clothes situation — that we're all just waiting for somebody to be like, Oh, wait, it's bad! Oh… we thought so, and then you told us we were dumb for thinking that it's not working, but it is actually bad.
Nightcap: How do you source your scam material?
Falcone: I have what I think of as the mainline scam, where the answer is 'yep,' and I just have a backlog of those.
Occasionally, stuff from friends pops up. Somebody mentioned to me the other day that the Oscars were originally started to prevent actors from unionizing, which I assumed couldn't possibly be true. But it turns out, [Louis B. Mayer] of MGM was the founder of the academy, and that was what he said he was doing. (Editor's note: This checks out.)
The user submissions have a separate path, because the answer to 'Is it a scam?' can sometimes be 'no.'
Nightcap: I was so nervous when I came across one of your videos about Costco. Please don't ruin Costco!
Falcone: Costco was a great 'nope.' The thing about Costco, and this is true of a lot of these things, is it's not a scam, but it's definitely a scheme. You have to pay to shop, which is such a crazy business model. You pay to walk in the door of a store where everything still costs money. That's definitely a scheme. But I don't think it's a scam.
Now I have 100-150 messages every day on the different platforms, asking 'can you look into this thing for me' … But the main source is just things that I'm generally mad about in my own life. I have plenty of those to keep this going for another couple years.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Wednesday's Child: 15-year-old Shakespeane
Wednesday's Child: 15-year-old Shakespeane

CBS News

time33 minutes ago

  • CBS News

Wednesday's Child: 15-year-old Shakespeane

WBZ/MARE MARE - Shay is a sweet, polite, and lovable young girl with a warm, engaging personality. Her social worker describes her as imaginative, funny, and incredibly kind. Shay has an empathetic nature that draws people to her, and she's well-liked by all the adults in her life. She has a creative spark and loves music, singing, and making fun videos. Shay also enjoys playing volleyball, experimenting with makeup, and getting her hair done. Active and confident, she even played on her middle school basketball team, showing both her team spirit and determination. For more information you can contact MARE: 617-964-MARE (6273) or visit Since its inception in 1981, Wednesday's Child has been a collaboration of the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE), the Department of Children & Families and WBZ-TV/CBS Boston. Hosted by Jack Williams for 34 years, this weekly series has given a face and voice to the children who wait the longest for families. Wednesday's Child has helped find homes for hundreds of waiting children and continues to raise awareness about adoption from foster care.

Miley Cyrus Says She ‘Owned a Lot' of Mom Tish's Pain Throughout Marriage to Billy Ray
Miley Cyrus Says She ‘Owned a Lot' of Mom Tish's Pain Throughout Marriage to Billy Ray

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Miley Cyrus Says She ‘Owned a Lot' of Mom Tish's Pain Throughout Marriage to Billy Ray

Miley Cyrus is opening up about where she stands with her parents, exes Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus, following years of estrangement and alleged drama. 'As I've gotten older, I'm respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents — because my mom's really loved my dad for her whole life, and I think being married to someone in the music industry and not being a part of it is obviously really hard,' Miley, 32, said on the Saturday, May 31, episode of 'The Interview' podcast from The New York Times. 'I think I took on some of my mom's hurt as my own because it hurt her more than it hurt me as an adult, and so I owned a lot of her pain.' Billy Ray, 63, and Tish, 58, were married from 1993 to 2022, during which they welcomed Miley and her siblings Braison, 30, and Noah, 25. (Billy Ray also adopted Tish's two eldest children from a previous relationship, Brandi and Trace, and is father to son Christopher, whom he shares with Kristin Luckey.) In the years since the 'Achy Breaky Heart' singer and Tish divorced, the family fractured with Miley, in particular, staying closer to her mom. In her Times profile, Miley confirmed that she is no longer estranged from Billy Ray. Miley Cyrus Addresses Relationships With Mom Tish and Dad Billy Ray After Feud Speculation 'I think timing is everything,' Miley said, adding that she is glad both of her parents have moved on. 'Now that my mom is so in love with my stepdad [Dominic Purcell], who I completely adore, and now that my dad, I see him finding happiness, too — I can love them both as individuals instead of as a parental pairing. I'm being an adult about it.' She added, 'At first it's hard, because the little kid in you reacts before the adult in you can go, 'Yes, that's your dad, but that's just another person that deserves to be in his bliss and to be happy.' My child self has caught up.' Tish married Purcell, 55, in an intimate 2023 ceremony held at Miley's Malibu, California, mansion. Billy Ray, meanwhile, confirmed two years later that he is dating actress Elizabeth Hurley. 'I just try to be more compassionate to my parents, because I hate that for them,' Miley told The Times, referring to the constant attention surrounding Tish and Billy Ray's respective relationships. 'I mostly hate it for my siblings because they didn't choose that kind of highlight on themselves. But for me, I've gotten so used to it that I'm like, 'If this is the symptom — that sometimes we deal with these embarrassing or difficult public opinions — then that's something I'm willing to take to have the life that we have.'' The Something Beautiful singer is also working on her independence. Miley Cyrus Explains How Dad Billy Ray Cyrus' Relationship to Success Is 'Wildly Different' to Hers 'My mom no longer travels with me, because I'm [nearly] 33 years old, and it was getting ridiculous. I never want to detach from my mom because we're so close,' Miley quipped to the outlet. 'I'll get tears in my eyes even talking about her. But if nature plays its course in the way that it does, I will be an individual without my mom at some point, and that used to completely paralyze me.' According to Miley, she now 'mothers' herself in a way that Tish did when she was growing up. 'I don't have my mom with me the way that I used to,' Miley said. 'And now I just go, 'What was it about her that made everything better?' It was safety because I knew any situation that I didn't feel safe in, my mom would get me out of it or make it better. And so now I just imagine what soothed me about her, and then I do it for myself.' Miley and Dad Billy Ray Cyrus' Ups and Downs Over the Years: From 'Hannah Montana' to Now Overall, Miley has found that her fame — eclipsing Billy Ray's own success — 'added a level of complexity' to her family's dynamics. 'I think it would be hard for anybody with a dream to see somebody else achieving theirs in a way that you see for yourself, but I do think love conquered all,' she said. "He can still find the pride in me. But it would be delusional for any of us to think that that doesn't add a level of complication to our already complicated dynamic.' Miley further noted that she 'got rid' of any lingering guilt or shame during EMDR therapy. 'At times in my life, guilt and shame were a driver for me,' the former Disney Channel star recalled. 'I had a hard time accepting that I could suffer because of how blessed I am. I don't think that's actually played too much of a part between me and my dad, though, because I have to have the faith that, like any dad, he would want this for me.'

Billy Ray Cyrus Gushes Over Daughter Miley Cyrus After Putting Estrangement Behind Them
Billy Ray Cyrus Gushes Over Daughter Miley Cyrus After Putting Estrangement Behind Them

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Billy Ray Cyrus Gushes Over Daughter Miley Cyrus After Putting Estrangement Behind Them

Billy Ray Cyrus shared his pride for daughter Miley Cyrus one month after she confirmed the pair have put their long-running estrangement behind them. Billy Ray, 63, took to Instagram on Sunday, June 1, to praise Miley, 32, sharing his daughter's Instagram Story of the music video for her new track 'Easy Lover.' The 'Achy Breaky Heart' singer wrote over the clip, 'So proud of you Mile!!!' before tagging her and adding colored heart stickers to the post. The proud father also commented on Miley's earlier Instagram grid promotion of the track, from her new album, Something Beautiful, leaving three blazing heart emojis on his daughter's post and "liking" it. Miley Cyrus Says She 'Owned a Lot' of Mom Tish's Pain Throughout Marriage to Billy Ray The PDA comes after Miley revealed where she currently stands with Billy Ray in a May 10 Instagram Story statement. 'My dad and I have had our challenges over the years,' Miley wrote in the statement. 'Now, in my 30s, family is my priority above all else. I'm at peace knowing bridges have been built and time has done a lot of healing.' Hours prior to Miley's statement, Billy Ray posted a photo of himself with Miley and son Braison, 31, as well as Miley's boyfriend, Maxx Morando. (Cyrus is the father of five children — Miley, Braison, Noah, 25, Brandi, 38, and Trace, 36 — whom he shares with ex-wife Tish Cyrus, as well as Christopher, 33, whom he shares with ex Kristin Luckey.) More recently, Miley expanded on the family's reconnection during an interview for The New York Times' 'The Interview' podcast, released on Saturday, May 31. 'As I've gotten older, I'm respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents — because my mom's really loved my dad for her whole life, and I think being married to someone in the music industry and not being a part of it is obviously really hard,' she said. 'I think I took on some of my mom's hurt as my own because it hurt her more than it hurt me as an adult, and so I owned a lot of her pain.' Billy Ray Cyrus Celebrates Daughter Miley Cyrus on Her Birthday with Sweet Throwback Pics In the years that followed the divorce of Tish, 58, and Billy Ray, the Cyrus family fractured, with Miley remaining close to her mom and supporting her stepfather, Dominic Purcell. 'I think timing is everything,' Miley said, adding that she is glad both of her parents have both moved on given Billy Ray's budding relationship with Elizabeth Hurley. 'Now that my mom is so in love with my stepdad, who I completely adore, and now that my dad, I see him finding happiness, too — I can love them both as individuals instead of as a parental pairing. I'm being an adult about it.' Miley continued, 'At first it's hard, because the little kid in you reacts before the adult in you can go, 'Yes, that's your dad, but that's just another person that deserves to be in his bliss and to be happy.' My child self has caught up.' Tish and Miley's relationship was put under the microscope after it was reported that Tish allegedly unfollowed Miley on social media. Us Weekly confirmed on May 8 that Tish began following her online that day.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store