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“Her face was basic, peasant face…which is how you know she’s legitimately wealthy” LMAO this line killed me

The one thing that always brings a conartist down is when they start to believe their own fake hype. They successfully con themselves & that's when they loose control of it all

"She truly knows that she is an aristocrat, it's just that this isn't based on her past, but on her future" That was a great line 👏👏

I really admire how closely Julia was able to flawlessly imitate the real Anna's accent. Believe it or not, but it actually IS that erratic! 😂🤣

The most unrealistic part of Inventing Anna is not how she swindled everyone but someone leaving a full bag of Shake Shack on the subway.

I think the reason why Anna is seem as this "iconic criminal" (almost like a hero) by some people is because the people she scammed aren't exactly super innocent victims. When I first read her story and the watched the show I was shocked to see what actually happened. I was expecting to hear about a insane young woman who went out of her away to ruin people's life, but (at least in my perception) most of them actually willingly gave her money and status. It is probably because I have no idea how the world of the super rich old money people works, but I still can't believe how many people just kept on trusting Anna, accepting her money and favors without knowing a single thing about her, they just THOUGHT she was a german heiress and somehow it was enough. Even when it comes to Rachel, how does one just accept all these favors, super expensive gifts and etc, knowing they could never pay for it, without questioning anything? I am not trying to defend Anna or blame the victims but I do believe that everyone involved in this insanity is just as money, fame and status hungry as her…

This almost reminds of DiCaprio in Catch me If You Can. Impeccable charisma and unquestionably committed to the role they're inhabiting

i don’t know why she’s painted to be a swindling genius when she makes the worst decision all the time. she already knows that she’s penniless and even on the brink of bankruptcy, yet whenever money comes in she spent them like she’s a true heiress. business minded? her business idea sounds like a self-fulfilling fantasy to me. no practical or sustainable elements to it at all. also, the scamming isn’t the thing that enrages me. it was when she blamed her incompetency and other people’s reluctance to work with her on misogyny against her. she blames everything on misogyny whenever it’s convenient.

I followed this story as it was unfolding. It's absolutely sickening how any flashy wannabe is perceived as authentic yet hard working, ethical people can't get a small business loan. This country is truly screwed up.

I would ignore all her crimes, except for the Morocco trip, because she put others in danger in another country. Sure, scam the banks, but putting your “friend” in financial ruin and putting her at risk of losing her job, nope.

I've actually noticed watching ppl who "scam the rich", it's often contingent on tricking just one person of much import. That initial person gives the scammer an adopted legitimacy, and well "there's no way that powerful person would introduce me to someone who isn't legit".

This all sounds like the story of a sociopath who totally understood the naivete, materialism, and shallowness of those living inside a bubble of wealth, and took advantage. Worse; she hurt some not-so-wealthy people, and people who actually cared about her because, again; she's a sociopath. Sadly, because our society puts almost all value in materialism; this is what some perceive as living the 'American dream'. And, in all deference to the seeming hero of the piece - I wish people would stop with the 'pull yourself up...' way of looking at life in the US. Most people work their entire adult lives, just to scrape by - let alone, wildly succeed.

In a way, she demonstrated that if you have status and image, these circles aren't so exclusive. The series shows how image and ego (more than money) seem to have overtaken the rich elite of NYC. That is until you steal from them. But, at the same time, we absolutely need to stop elevating these behaviours (scam artists) as pure boldness. We may not care if these scammers steal from banks. Since these same banks were responsible for the 2008 market crash. Unfortunately, these individuals can have a serious predicament on the people they scam. We can think of Elizabeth Holmes and her 'testing' system that affected the health of so many individuals. Or Martin Shkreli who jack up the price of one medication for personal gain. At the end of the day, this fake it 'til you make it hurt people. And it's time we stop promoting and elevating and celebrating these individuals. Especially when all they have for us is extreme contempt.

It's really just Catch Me If You Can for the social media generation, isn't it?

In my opinion, something that help Anna to get her way was a lack of knowledge of German culture. Even though Germany is one of the world's wealthiest countries, there is something about their culture about being extra careful with money. Really, it doesn't matter how wealthy they are, Germans usually don't splurge, which doesn't mean they are cheap, it means that they don't throw money around to impress people (like giving away 100 USD tips or inviting a group of friends to a luxury hotel in Morocco). And most particularly those who belong to Germany's most privileged social class are super discreet and don't really show off their wealth or even establish relationships outside of their social circle. My guess is that generally speaking, people are more familiar with the super flashy Paris Hilton/Kardashian sisters style, rather than the sober, airtight European way. The reality is that we hardly understand how the ultra-wealthy live and behave. Same story with the Tinder swindler, really, how naive you need to be to really convince yourself that the son of a billionaire would ever be on Tinder!! These people are way above that and just for security and public image issues, they could never open any Tinder account. I simply cannot imagine the children of Carlos Slim, Mexico's and Latin America's wealthiest man, having a Tinder account, just the thought of that is preposterous.

Imagine how far she could have went had she used her smarts and savvy for good

I find it ironic that we keep saying that we need to stop glamorizing criminals like con artists and serial killers, but shows like this keep getting made. We are all complicit because we like watching these shows and films. I do like how it shows double standards. With Rachel, she did publicize her situation for money and made herself look like a victim, which she was, but I can see why she did it. Maybe she did this so she can make up the money she lost especially since book deal money takes forever to land in your account. She also wanted to share her side without being judged and she was still judged anyways. The other double standard was Anna was arrested when the male lawyer who messed up and was complicit in some if this did not, but got promoted. Not justifying either behavior, by the way.

It's not WHAT you know, but WHO you know seems particularly applicable here.

Is it time to talk about how Russian characters are portrayed in movies? The Take has discussed plenty of Russian characters: Black Widow, The Great, Ninotchka and it's kinda of topical with Russia becoming enemy number 1 again.

I _love_ Julia Garner. It blows my mind that she can go from her genius hillbilly character in Ozark to her genius foreign sociopath character in Inventing Anna.

i was really expecting the netfix series to be more focused on anna. i didn't care as much about the journalist, i wanted the rags-to-'rich' story with her as a the protagonist rather than as a mysterious figure

the fact that she is real is still absolutely sending me, i watched the first episode convinced that this is fiction

I think it's deeply troubling that society gets way more offended when one of them con's the rich than when the rich con the society.

While this was a fun video, I think skipping over the fact that she is white and Russian was a mistake. Whiteness is a quicker entrance into this sort of society than any other aspect. Also, while this does touch on 'immigrant', being a Russian her world view is going to be different than that of say an immigrant from Mexico. I get why you all are treading lightly, but still.

What I get and don’t get at the same time that Vivian and the other reporters tried exposing Anna for the main purpose of exposing her and making her a villain, so to speak. In the end, they were her supporters. They heard these sad stories of the people she ripped off or destroyed, and they were rooting for her. Like Anna’s mom said, “she has a way of making you like her.” In the end, Vivian was obsessed like everyone else with the fiction instead of the real narrative. People were addicted to her and could not stop . It was disturbing, in my opinion.

I can respect her hustle to making a name for herself but I didn't like how she still went to expensive places that she can't afford and then get angry when they force her to pay.

I really think the real critique in this story comes down to what the American Legal System considers coercion and what it doesn’t.

julia as anna looks so much like my sister it's haunting. but specifically with the auburn hair and glasses. definitely a good casting choice for the chameleon aspect

Failing upwards but what the ''American Dream" ignores is that she is a young white woman. I highly doubt that a black person would have had the access to such ppl and gifts and open doors that easily.

This is great, but I think it would have needed to delve much deeper into mental health. She didn't just con people because of greed, she conned them because that's the way nacississts, maquiavelists, sociopaths and/or psychopaths get thrills and "survive". I also think it's terrible that this show ended up making a heroine of her, rather than show the dangers of society's missinformation on mental dissorders, as well as the superficiality that rotts today's world.

This show had me glued to the tv for days😂😂😂

Tinder Swindler and Inventing Anna both came out on Netflix around February. The moral lesson from both: money may buy you fame or "love" but it will never buy you integrity.

Last one: I had a similar conversation with someone like Anna and Rachel did. I lent someone my textbook and she never gave it back. She was also my note taker and I gave her a nice thank you gift for being a big help. Every time I asked fir it back, she made me seem like I was crazy for asking for it back. For me it is the principle of the thing and hate being, maybe gaslighted like that. That hurts more than losing the actual textbook. For Rachel, she lost her job or close to it and was in major heat with people and Anna treated her like she was crazy. I can see how she will have trust issues with people after that even with her making money off of it.

Thank you for this video!! As someone who had no idea who Anna is/was, this is a good intro

Anna should take a page out of Jordan Belfort's book (the guy from wolf of wallstreet) and become a motivational speaker. Luckily for Anna, she's not owing millions of dollars to people and if she stops trying to fraud people, could live a happy life.

Please please please, do an Euphoria analysis, I'm dying for watch your take about!

Please make a video about how Russian are perceived in shows and movies.

just something to think about, for a video essay, at your own pace, you mind covering the troubled-teen character trope? Which can include the expectations vs. the reality of the troubled-teen industry, centered stories where the teen's story is set in boot camps,

Have to point out that while the show explicitly suggests her parents are "regular," implicitly it suggests otherwise. Anna's mom says she found Anna impossible to take care of - whatever the cause, that's not a "regular" environment to grow up in - one in which your caregiver finds and treats you as a being that is impossible to give care to.

How did a lower class Russian girl know so much about enology, fashion, history, general knowledge...????

As George Carlin put it: "To believe in the American Dream, you need to be sleep at it."

I was gonna suggest this to you guys ohmygod. You never disappoint =)

Billy Macfarlane could never 😂 a video on all of the recent big scammers would be cool tho (looking at you, Elizabeth Holmes)

"Why are being like this? So dramatic."

I would have liked for the video to talk more about the difference between her being a white woman and doing crimes that have been glamorized and George Floyd was murdered for one banknote that was thought of as being fake, and then the whole media put out his resume small charges crime to point out how bad he was, as it is with every black person doing crime in the media. Ana became famous, served a little time, as for black men stay in jail for 50 years for owning 1 gram of weed. I think the video didn't quite talk about this, how we glamorize white crime as opposed to black crime. Ana will go out of jail and make millions out of her fame, Instagram, interviews, maybe write books while other people have already been killed for less: For a traffic ticket, for someone calling the police on them fake and busting on them while sleeping.

Netflix really is running PR for this con artist.

little something to think about for a future video essay, you mind covering the conflicting portrayals of the hippie character? That based on what era &who's speaking the narrative, they're either portrayed very negatively(eco terrorists, lazy, always high, or they're actually stupid) or as just background characters/side-kicks, or basically redshirt fodder, &their positive portrayals almost limited, if it's only in musicals, or they have their own nuclear(straight couple with kids)families, as the only means to humanize their character,

Why didn’t anyone do a basic credit check AND investigate her family? Am I missing something? 😂😂😂😂😂

for me what is most appealing about the anna story is that it brought the rich down to earth. we live in a society where the rich are treated as 'better' by virtue of their money, so knowing that they are just as naive and susceptible to cons as the rest of us is a great source of schadenfreude

This kind of series could have been better if made under HBO.

I think she had a very good idea and it could have worked. She didn’t have the money to do it so she faked it and she went to far, if she had been more careful it truly could have worked.

That's it, I'm going to watch the series- But in my defense the lines; "what you wearing, you look poor" threw me off when watching the trailer

I think we need to move away from "the hustle" economy myself.

sooo, think big, get cash, make 'em blink fast?

The only thing I took from this is people want to believe the fairytale. The richer and more elite you are the more greed will blur your vision of what is to good to be true. Everyone wanted to believe she was an heiress because it benifited them.

I loved this show! The acting, the costumes, and the aesthetic: amazing. All around a great showcase about this interesting story.

And here I am feeling uncomfortable in any restaurant that's a tiny bit more expensive than Olive garden 😅

Despite my better judgement, I love everything about this story, and I think she's awesome. One cannot help but enviously admire absolute dedication to one's goals, the spirit of being "all in" all the time. She's the villain you root for!

I think an important point about the story that is missing in the video is the idea that Anna only failed BEACAUSE she had no money, while people who are born into money can pull scams and get away with it with no consequences. On the top of my mind, I can think of three clear moments when the show is trying to send this message. One is when Vivian is reflecting about how Anna is a clever scammer while the TV set shows images of Trump. The second one is when Vivian is talking to a person who explains how rich people ask for loans constantly. The third one is the character of Alan Reed's daughter, who is useless and unfocused but suffers no real consequences from it, while Anna has to scam her way to a loan for her dream

No one could have played anna then her her act is perfect

Underrated genius.

I'm sooooo confused. I thought you did one about this and the dropout being presented in a sympathetic light but now I can only find this video? Did you delete it? I was looking forward to watching it. It's actually the only reason I watched the dropout and now it's gone 😕

I was rewatching the show lately, and I believe that Anna will not go that far if she happens to be in another country. She is rude, arrogant, selfish, and cheap! In my home country, if a person is constantly trying to avoid bills that come to him/her and is living like a parasite, then that person is viewed as cheap. The fact that she could go that far in NY means that there was something wrong with the people around her in that city.

I think when you compare Inventing Anna with Catch Me If You Can, Leo's character was applauded and hired by the FBI, whereas Anna was arrested and now perhaps deported. Leo pretended to be a doctor and fly commercial jets, practised law even; Anna rocked up some hotel bills....

"Old money doesn't exist in America in the same way?" Huh. You have Oligarchs in America too you just don't call them that.

i'd like to bring some attention to the fact that a video about a scam artist is sponsored by better help lmao.

This is my take :As a firm believer of fake it until you make it she 80% smart to make it in her level.The rest were small traces she left for her victims to detect her.Anyho she is high mindset game and attitude with class though she is to my opinion financially dumb....Had she invested earlier and worked clean she would be in places!!!...fame overtook her

Anna Sorkin is the modern day Frank Abagnale.

They done it again, glorifying a criminal so that people will adore that criminal and forget that said criminal has ruined serveral lifes

I loved it!!!!

If Anna had been born during the Gilded Age and was A Man we would walking past a building named after her

what anna did was obviously wrong and she traumatized people that actually cared for her, but if shes right about one thing, is how women will never be taken seriously in a word dominated by men. She had to do most of the things she did to be taken seriously by old, rich men, and it is very few the cases of women who actually succeed all by their own, not because they dont try, but because the world doesnt let them. (btw im in no way defending anna and it doesnt excuse any of her actions, its just an observation of mine.)

She has a NEED for global attention!!!

As a black woman with natural hair and am 42- there is no way that anyone would believe me. And I am an actor. 🤔

How about a video on millennial scam, Fyre festival, Elizabeth Theranos, the TinderSwindler...WeWork

I feel like Anna is an old aristocrat man who died and reincarnated in a young German girl 😂

why did she go to jail but the tinder swindler didn’t?

In one of her interviews Anna said she doesn't really feel like she did anything wrong. I sort of agree with that because it doesn't seem like a big elaborate plan, she was just winging it. She was mostly just lying and people were giving her what she said she needs. Lying is not moral but it's not a crime either. I'm not saying that she didn't scam and commit actual crimes, obviously she did because she was proven guilty. It's just I think this happens quite often in a less extreme manner. She just took it a bit far and had to face the consequences

she played the system.

Anna Delvey (Legend) 🤫

i've read this story, but last time there was a lot more about a green light or smth 🤔🤨

America's *Pluto return* is here... good luck everyone

Honestly this is not far from the truth, if u can imagine it, it can happen. For example I have this dress, like a really beautiful ball dress and my brother and I often joke about how I can literally get into hotels or private parties with that same dress. People are just easy to fool.

Who has made money “legitimately?” Like real real money? The only person she stole from was that rich older lady. She literally stole her card numbers. Everyone else just gave her money. Or were terrible at their jobs and gave her suites before ascertaining viable payment.

All she had to do was articulate her vision and get a legitimate investor and create her dream business. She had all the pieces, she didn't have to lie. The lifestyle was her passion since she was young, all she had to do was pitch her destiny story to the right investor, with a bangin' photo centric business plan. Instead her beliefs about her background's worthiness, became her demise.

Let’s be honest, Anna only got away with this because she was white.

Ana Delvey and Elizabeth Holmes are to me the different sides of the same coin.

Society is the cause. We place value in appearances that's why "influencers" and famous people get famous and rich

The problem with this show is that it essentially allowed Sorokin to profit from the sale of her life story.

You are right about Rachel, she's just another user.

The Take usually has amazing insight into a show and its characters. This one felt a little shallow.

Woah woah

This is going to have people out here acting crazy and sitting in jail lol the only people who would describe this as debacle as an American Dream are people who need help..scamming culture is alive and it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon...

So Ruth does survive season 4 part 2 god damn spoilers!

what is the actress' name

She does not stole a jet. She just did not paid for it.

That accent is called "Tommy Wiseau"

0:59 right cuz there's none of those right now /s

Anna is the real life Joanne the Scammer.