The Second Coming of the Hipster Grifter

In 2008, 21-year-old Kari Ferrell left Salt Lake City — and a few open arrest warrants for $60,000 in check fraud — for Brooklyn. She faked credentials to land a job at Vice as an administrative assistant, but was fired a week later, after a co-worker Googled her and found the warrants. What comes next is the stuff of scammer lore. In Brooklyn, she made marks out of men with beards and extra funds. Her lies ranged from little to large: She worked in music media; the ATM wasn’t working; she’d pay you back; the pregnancy test was positive; she had terminal lung cancer. By the following spring, her antics were chronicled in a damning story for the Observer that dubbed her “the Hipster Grifter.”

The New York blogosphere ate it up, churning out frenzied content trying to identify her. Vice dedicated a blog to sightings of Ferrell, and men submitted tips about the Hipster Grifter trying to worm her “felonious, manipulative fingers” into them. “This bitch is rapidly turning into a Brooklynian Where’s Waldo meets Nessie,” the site wrote.

The U.S. surpassed 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021, a new record. And a first-of-its-kind federal study of forced-assimilation Native American boarding schools has identified more than 500 student deaths at the institutions so far. A passenger with no flying experience was forced to land their plane after the pilot became incoherent, like a scene straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Apparently Gen Z doesn’t know that Ray J and Brandy are siblings, and that ends now. A Bushwick version of The Bachelor, you say? Count us in. Spain is set to become the first Western country offering menstrual leave to women, up to three days each month. Streaming services are going to start running ads, which begs the question … have we basically just come full circle to regular old TV? And sending love and scritches to very good boy Patron.

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