Why We’re So Obsessed with Grifters
Anna Delvey didn’t just show her marks a fake persona—she reflected their own fantasies
Last week, all anybody who was anybody in New York media circles could talk about was the story of Anna Delvey — since branded the “SoHo grifter” — the faux-German (and real Russian) “heiress” who managed to convince half of New York City to lend her outrageous amounts of money. Living in impossibly expensive hotels, hiring a “a svelte, ageless Oprah-esque figure” as her personal trainer, commissioning a PR firm to throw her a birthday party studded with the great and the good, recruiting a starry-eyed hotel concierge as her de facto companion, Delvey managed to pull off the ultimate con: making people think she mattered. As told in New York Magazine’s grippingly outlandish account, Delvey didn’t just rob people of their money. She robbed them, far more importantly, of their attention.
But how Delvey’s grifter strategy relied not on personal charisma, nor on physical attractiveness, nor on an ability to convince people to care about her, specifically. Rather, it seems, Delvey was successful because she recognized the purely transactional nature of her social sphere. People want to be around other people who matter. Delvey insisted — consistently, zealously, despite all evidence to the contrary — that she mattered.
