From Anna Delvey to the Tinder Swindler: why do we fall for the TV scammers? | Nancy Jo Sales

Shows like Netflix's Inventing Anna are hits because they reflect the unreality of a world that has normalised fakeness

You're not special," Anna Delvey sneers at the reporter covering her story in the Netflix drama series Inventing Anna. The implication is that Delvey, a con artist and convicted felon, is special - and millions of people seem to agree. Inventing Anna has some of the highest ratings in Netflix's history, with over 400m hours' worth of views in February; and the real-life Delvey - who goes by her faux-heiress, conwoman name rather than her actual surname, Sorokin - has seen her number of followers on Instagram alone soar from 150,000 to over 800,000 since the series premiered.

The streamer's other top February hit was The Tinder Swindler, which attracted more than 45m views in its first week of release, and hit Netflix's Top 10 list in 92 countries. Why two shows about con artists - one a fake German heiress and the other the fake scion of an Israeli diamond business - have so captured the world's attention has spawned a slew of think pieces asking: why do we love - or love to hate - scammers so much? And why now, especially?

Nancy Jo Sales is a writer at Vanity Fair and the author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers and The Bling Ring