Bad Vegan

[K Graham]

This is a show on Netflix that I watched the other night. Has anyone seen it?

I also watched Inventing Anna which has a similar theme, also based on true story. My next is stop will be Tindler Swindler which seems to also carry the same theme.

Anyway, while watching Bad Vegan, which is about a woman who got married a con artist who kept feeding her extraordinary lies just to milk her bank accounts, my wife kept saying out loud, "No way this can be real. No way this woman is this stupid. Why does she keep believing what he says when she is such a smart business woman"? The show included audio recordings of the things her husband would say to her in long unhinged rants, filled to the brim with BS after BS, and you have to wonder how any rational person could believe this crap. But the woman did, and it ended up with her in prison. Destroyed her life as she was a famous vegan restaurant owner who catered to famous celebrities in New York all the time. But she came across a con artist who promised her that if she kept wiring him money while he was on Black Ops missions for the government, then he would make sure her beloved dog would live forever.

I kinda laughed throughout the show but again, my wife thought it was all invented because it sounded too stupid to be true. Then last night we were on a double date with friends and they were saying the same thing. How could any human being with a functional brain believe such BS?

I quickly reminded them of Donald Trump and the millions of brain dead followers who continually believe everything he says no matter how many of his claims are proven false.

[Res Ipsa]

I have not, but highly recommend Inventing Anna as a wonderful look at how cons work and what a pious fraud might look like.

[honorentheos]

This is a genre of offering I don't find attractive enough to spend time watching. So I'm curious, what attracts and holds you to watch them? Just the premise seems enough for me to swipe left on the suggestion so I'm interested in what attracts those who swipe right, so to speak?

[honorentheos]

To expand, and perhaps cross post with Schmo's thread about The Boys, I find documentaries to be interesting for different reasons than I do works of fiction/written media. With fiction I find I am more interested in seeing what someone does with a topic via the medium, even if the show has signs of not being great. Documentaries, OTOH, I almost purely judged based on the subject. I've never been a fan of Michael Moore, largely because his movies don't function as documentaries but masquerade as such. Much of the docu-drama fare on Netflix and the like strikes me as being in this vein.

So, while watching a show like The Boys, I'll find myself engaging with the writers and producers of the show, evaluating the narrative, the camera choices, the movie as medium. And this makes me more likey to decide to start watching it if it strikes me as having something between the above that would make the time investment pay dividends.

When Netflix suggests I might want to watch Tiger King, or any of the above, my instinct after watching the preview is to wonder, "What more is there to gain from watching this that the preview didn't provide?" It's a much higher hurdle, I think.

[K Graham]

This is a genre of offering I don't find attractive enough to spend time watching. So I'm curious, what attracts and holds you to watch them? Just the premise seems enough for me to swipe left on the suggestion so I'm interested in what attracts those who swipe right, so to speak?

Probably for the same reason we're addicted to Forensic Files. You're hoping the offenders get justice, and they usually do.

[honorentheos]

This is a genre of offering I don't find attractive enough to spend time watching. So I'm curious, what attracts and holds you to watch them? Just the premise seems enough for me to swipe left on the suggestion so I'm interested in what attracts those who swipe right, so to speak?

Probably for the same reason we're addicted to Forensic Files. You're hoping the offenders get justice, and they usually do.

Makes sense, thanks Kevin.

[Some Schmo]

This is just the kind of show my wife will want to watch, so I'll probably catch it with her.