Archives for May 2022

Some of the projects that Mr. Armstrong promoted were small-time, experimental crypto ventures that eventually encountered problems. In those cases, he said, he considered himself a victim, too.

“They’re preying on the novice crypto influencer who just got popular and is trying to figure out what they should and shouldn’t be doing,” he said. “It’s hard to go from 12,000 followers to a million in one year and make all the right decisions.”

Mr. Paul rose to fame as a video blogger and an occasional actor; YouTube once reprimanded him for publishing footage of a dead body he found in a Japanese forest. Over the years, he has parlayed his internet fame into an eclectic array of entrepreneurial pursuits, including a line of energy drinks.

Mr. Paul became interested in crypto last year as the market for NFTs started booming. In a recent interview, he acknowledged that he was still learning how to navigate the crypto market, even as he tried to profit from the technology. “I’m an extreme ideas person, not much of an executor,” he said.

Mr. Paul was involved in some of the initial brainstorming for the Dink Doink project. But the venture was ultimately spearheaded by one of his roommates, Jake Broido, who gave Mr. Paul 2.5 percent of the tokens that were initially issued.

In a tweet last June, Mr. Paul called it one of the “dumbest, most ridiculous” cryptocurrencies he had encountered, and circulated a video of a cartoon character singing sexually explicit lyrics. “That’s why I’m all in,” he added. He also appeared in a shaky-cam video on Telegram in which he hailed Dink Doink as possibly his favorite crypto investment.

The campaign was a flop, and Mr. Paul was pilloried by YouTube critics. The price of Dink Doink hovered well below a cent, before falling even further in value over the summer. Mr. Paul said he had never sold his tokens or profited from the project. But he said he regretted promoting the coin without disclosing his financial stake. “I definitely didn’t act as responsibly as I should have,” he said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/technology/crypto-influencers.html

Anyone else who appears in court risks being lifted into an internet folk hero or smeared as a liar. Heard’s attorney Elaine Charlson Bredehoft is branded a “Karen” (once a term for a racist white woman, it has since been flattened into an all-purpose misogynistic slur) and conspiratorially constructed as an undercover Depp fan, while Vasquez is cast as a Depp love interest, hailed as an internet sensation for her “intimate” interactions with her client. Seemingly every woman tangentially involved in the case has been imbued with imagined Depp-lust. Dr. Shannon Curry, an expert witness called by Depp’s team, has been celebrated for “exchanging glances” with Depp on the stand; even Curry’s husband, who she mentioned once delivered muffins to her office, has been inflated into a treasured fan fiction character referred to as “the muffin man.” Meanwhile, Depp supporters have harassed two of Heard’s expert witnesses off the medical professional site WebMD, flooding their profiles with one-star reviews.

The internet livestreaming of the trial has created its own virtual sport. Each day hundreds of thousands of viewers congregate on YouTube livestreams, like the one hosted by the Law Crime Network, and type comments into a racing sidebar chat. Some pay as much as $400 to have their comments highlighted and pinned to the top of the chat — the more you pay, the longer your commentary lords over the proceedings. During Wednesday’s stream, one participant paid to say that Heard “has a nesting snake on her head”; another promoted his YouTube novelty song about Heard’s legal team.

The immediacy of the livestream and its commentary gives viewers the illusion that they can somehow influence the outcome of the case; someone is always pleading for an internet artifact to be “forwarded to Camille,” as if obsessive fan attention alone might crack the case. This week, Depp’s team called a witness who surfaced after he posted a tweet in response to a pro-Depp Twitter account’s coverage of the trial.

Even if they cannot influence the trial itself, viewers can shape public opinion in real time. Once a fan fiction scenario gains enough momentum to achieve escape velocity, it is elevated into mainstream tabloids, which are rife with reports of Depp’s courtroom flirtations and epic witness-stand one-liners. Once gossip journalists had to craft celebrity story lines themselves, but now the narratives are lifted straight from social media and enshrined as Hollywood canon. Gossip sites are regurgitating banal celebrity internet activity as heartwarming Depp content: Jennifer Aniston followed Johnny Depp on Instagram as a “subtle sign of support,” the magazine claimed, and Depp followed Aniston back as a “sweet gesture.”

But when Julia Fox supported Heard on Instagram, she soon became the focus of articles about how she was hypocritical and “downright stupid.” When a celebrity does not provide such dubious material, it may simply be invented: recently a YouTuber edited and dubbed trial footage to make it seem as if Heard’s “Aquaman” co-star, Jason Momoa, has appeared on the stand to fawn over Depp’s lawyer.

It’s tempting to ignore all of this — to refuse to feed the machine with even more attention. But like Gamergate, which took an obscure gaming-community controversy and inflated it into an internet-wide anti-feminist harassment campaign and a broader right-wing movement, this nihilistic circus is a potentially radicalizing event. When the trial ends this week, the elaborate grassroots campaign to smear a woman will remain, now with a plugged-in support base and a field-tested harassment playbook. All it needs is a new target.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/arts/amber-heard-tiktok-johnny-depp.html

Viewers see a culinary backpacker cosplaying as the ugly American, a man always seeking, even if all roads lead to ambient comfort. The episodes blur, their locations at once distinctive and indistinguishable. California and Wyoming and Maine do not seem so far apart.

“He goes to all these diners, drive-ins and dives,” said one fan, Jim McGinnis, 77, explaining the show’s appeal as Mr. Fieri administered handshakes and how-ya-doing-brothers at a charity event for New Jersey veterans. “It’s just a pleasure.”

It helps that no one wrings more theater from the preordained: Mr. Fieri arrives at a chosen spot. He seems excited. He riffs, a little uncomfortably, to make the jittery proprietors more comfortable. (The stop at the Indian restaurant, Haldi Chowk in Middletown Township, N.J., included nods to “Wheel of Fortune,” “Forrest Gump” and “My Cousin Vinny,” with a brief meditation on the differences between I.T., iced tea and Ice-T for reasons that eluded the room.)

Eventually, a chef has walked Mr. Fieri through the preparation of a favored dish. The host takes a bite — in this scene, it is the tandoori chicken — and shifts his weight a bit. He stands back, silent. His eyes dart mischievously, as if he has just gotten away with something. He wanders off, pretending to collect himself. The chef smiles. The big reveal only ever goes one way.

“Not good, chef. Not good at all,” Mr. Fieri says, the oldest left turn in the TV judge’s manual. “Fantastic.”

Rachael Ray, a friend whom Mr. Fieri cites as an influence, compared his people skills to a game of tag: You will like him. Denying as much midpursuit only wastes everyone’s time. “He just keeps chasing you,” she said.

Mr. Zimmern described him as a politician, “always talking to his base,” forever the person he told them he was.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/dining/guy-fieri-flavortown.html

“You get people who write books about dog burials,” he told The New York Times in 1980. “People write letters to me about how this book should sell five million copies in hardcover, 10 million in paperback, and why Robert Redford will want to make a movie out of it. And you pick it up and it’s a book about a postman. Then we get these books all the time about how the C.I.A. has planted a transmitter in my teeth.”

Having made millions, Mr. Janklow shifted direction in 1989. He formed a partnership with Lynn Nesbit, a veteran agent for International Creative Management whose clients included such literary figures as Toni Morrison, Tom Wolfe, John le Carré, Donald Barthelme, John Gregory Dunne and Robert A. Caro.

Representing moneymakers as well as literary talents, Janklow Nesbit eventually established a client list of 1,100 novelists and nonfiction writers, including the winners of Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, Academy Awards and other accolades. Many were well-known politicians, entertainers, historians, journalists, and leaders of the arts and sciences.

Mr. Janklow took commissions of 15 percent when most agents got 10 percent. But his clients received abundant rewards. The Janklovian clout often won signing bonuses and subsidiary rights for television and movie spinoffs, as well as book club and world publishing deals. He also won rights rarely given to authors: a say in advertising and promotional campaigns, even in the details of a book’s cover and jacket copy.

For some established writers, he secured contracts for books not yet plotted, let alone written. Many of his clients became regulars on the best-seller list. In November 1989, he had three clients who held No. 1 positions on Times lists: Danielle Steel on hardcover fiction with “Daddy,” Nancy Reagan on nonfiction with “My Turn” and Sidney Sheldon on paperback fiction with “The Sands of Time.”

Unlike most agents, who remain in their clients’ shadows, Mr. Janklow was a flamboyant self-promoter who moved in political, cultural, communications and entertainment circles and gave lavish parties for the A-list. His friends included Mayor Edward I. Koch of New York; the television news stars Morley Safer and Barbara Walters; The Washington Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham; William Paley, the chairman of CBS; California’s governor, Jerry Brown; and the writers Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.

He was tall and intense, and he talked a blue streak. “One doesn’t so much converse with Janklow as plunge into a rushing river of words and try to grab onto a piece of conversational driftwood,” Trip Gabriel wrote in a magazine article for The Times in 1989. He noted that Mr. Janklow’s quest for big advances was more than a macho game or the result of gossip’s influence on the marketplace.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/books/morton-l-janklow-dead.html

On Tuesday, a transgender artist said on Reddit that people online “just took my photos and used it to spread misinformation.” After the artist posted other photos as proof, an account on Twitter that discusses gun rights deleted a post that had included the artist’s photo and apologized.

A 22-year-old transgender student living in New York also reported that photos of her were falsely linked to the gunman. She posted photos of herself on Twitter to prove her identity and asked people to stop saying the photos of her were of the gunman.

“Im very close to crying,” she posted at one point.

The Trans Safety Network, a research group that monitors threats against the transgender community, said in a statement on Wednesday that it had identified photos of three transgender people wrongly linked to the gunman and confirmed that all three were alive.

Mr. Gosar and Ms. Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

3. No, the gunman was not an undocumented immigrant.

False claims that the gunman was born outside the United States began to circulate within hours of the shooting. Spread largely on white nationalist Telegram channels and Gab accounts, the claims alleged that he was an undocumented immigrant in the United States, even after authorities including Roland Gutierrez, a Texas state senator, confirmed that the gunman was born in North Dakota.

Two Telegram groups with ties to white supremacist figures claimed Wednesday that the gunman had “illegally penetrated” the country from the Mexican border. The groups, which each have thousands of followers, went on to falsely claim that the gunman was undocumented in the United States.

“Did he cross the border illegally?” Code of Vets, a veterans organization, posted on Twitter. “Our nation has a serious national security crisis evolving.”

Later, the group added a post noting that “the shooter has been confirmed to be a citizen” while stating: “Mental health must be addressed. Our border must be secured.”

Mr. Gosar also said the gunman had been in the country illegally.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/texas-shooting-misinformation.html