As a New England college professor, I’m required to listen to NPR. In tweed.
One of the radio station’s recent best relates to those e-mails we all receive. “Dear sir,” they begin, “I am Ndulu Mwana, former executive of the Bank of Nigeria, and I have $8 million in a bank account and I need your help…”
This American Life interviews three men who don’t just hit the delete button:
Three guys who go by the names Professor So and So, Jojobean and YeaWhatever spend part of each day running elaborate cons on Internet scammers. They consider themselves enforcers of justice, even after they send a man 1400 miles from home, to the least safe place they can bait him: the border of Darfur. The three self-made enforcers tell Ira their story.
If you emerge from the podcast hating humanity, I recommend the story of Sam Slaven: an Iraq War vet who came home full of uncontrollable fear and hatred toward Muslims.What did he do? He went for extreme exposure therapy–and joined his school’s Muslim Students Association.
Now, excuse me while I return to my NPR and arugula…
2 Responses
Indeed – I listened to that one last week. The baiters were cruel and took it too far… and I felt sorry for the scammers.
Still, I’m not sure TAL spent enough time showing how cruel and manipulative the scammers are though.
It was like watching one ugly bug eat another one – you feel a little like squashing them both.
I listened to that as well, and about 10 minutes into it I was cursing insults at the three comfortable, privileged and most irritatingly, smug “scam baiters”.