American Scammer Elizabeth Holmes Terrifies Me and I Can't Look Away

In the soon-to-be-released film, You Can See Everything , cringe comedian Nathan Fielder and filmmaker Lance Oppenheim spent three painstaking years deep-diving into the twisted world and mind of convicted American scammer Elizabeth Holmes. The A24 documentary hits theaters October 16. The eyes say it all If you haven’t seen the trailer, I need you to run (not walk) to witness the same horror I exposed myself to. Instantly, you are sucked in by Holmes’ sickly-sweet voice and disturbing, sanpaku eyes . “Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that,” she mutters. It makes you feel like you’re not quite witnessing human behavior, but more like you’re about to be shoved into a stove by the witch from Hansel and Gretel. And according to expression experts, Holmes’ dissociative “joker smile” gaze is biologically wired to set us on edge. The internet is having a field day, as it should. This was the trailer that launched a million memes ; the response seems to be limitless. Celebrities are satirizing Holmes and posting to their social accounts. Artists are posting their creepy abstract Elizabeth face art. There are even puppets parodying this thing . But despite her passing-as-human expressions being creepy as hell, they don’t even come close to the actual terror she wreaked on America’s most vulnerable. Bad Blood “The right to protect the health and well-being of every person and those we love is a basic human right,” proclaimed Elizabeth Holmes from a San Francisco TED Talk stage in 2014. That was then. Holmes was at the peak of her successful con. Today, we have a different perception of her. She now lives in infamy for creating and establishing nothing but hot air. But we forget there was a time when she successfully fooled many. It can’t be overstated how much this woman deceived people into thinking she’d created a revolutionary technology that could bypass long lab testing, and with just a single drop of blood, patients could know quickly if they had a critical condition. It was with this promise that she achieved her big con, and at the highest levels. Media moguls like Rupert Murdoch invested millions. Government dignitaries like Henry Kissinger sat on her board. Walgreens was tricked into entering into a partnership with her. Even President Barack Obama named her a presidential ambassador for global entrepreneurship. But worse than the billionaire investors and powerful people she deceived was the impact Theranos’ inaccurate testing had on actual patients. One of the most insidious consequences of Holmes’ big lie was its effect on our country’s most vulnerable. One of the most insidious consequences of Holmes’ big lie was its effect on our country’s most vulnerable. Cancer patients received inaccurate test results, offering false hope for some and unwarranted panic for others. During the prosecution of Holmes’ cases, the cases of male patients who’d been led to believe that they had serious, advanced prostate cancer were shared. These patients agonized for weeks before eventually being told the truth. Conversely, some cancer patients were told they had normal levels when the opposite was true, resulting in delayed treatment. A patient named Erin Tompkins shared that after taking the Theranos test, she was flagged for having HIV antibodies. Even pregnant women were terrorized by this fakery. Brittany Gould had suffered three miscarriages prior to her fourth pregnancy. She went to Walgreens and took the Theranos test. Immediately after receiving the results, she was told the results showed she was actively miscarrying again and that her child was “non-viable.” They discussed treatment for her miscarriage, but before doing so, they got a second test, just to be safe. Thankfully, Gould received the truth: her child was healthy and fine. But had she gone with just the Theranos test, she could’ve accidentally aborted her baby. Eventually, Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, she resides in the federal prison colloquially known as “ Club Fed ,” which houses other “celebrity criminals” like Real Housewives ’ Jen Shah or Ghislaine Maxwell. The inmates have a sprawling 37-acre prison playground to roam. Scamdom Why is it that Elizabeth Holmes’ story of deception has captured our culture? Why is our appetite for scam stories so ravenous? We just can’t seem to get enough. To the point where there is even an entire subgenre of true crime devoted to scams. And the shows and books based on these stories are immensely popular. If I’m presented with the options of a dating reality show, a romantic drama, or a documentary about a woman scamming her entire family… guess which one I’m watching? We want to figure out how Anna Delvey got away with ingratiating herself into New York’s elite; we want to understand how Jordan Belfort of The Wolf of Wall Street conned investors. We wince when we hear stories of catfishing on social media apps and are thankful it didn’t happen to us. I devoured the podcast called Scamanda that retold the story of a young mother and blogger who faked cancer to siphon over $100,000 from her church and community. The science behind the scam-cession According to experts, a few psychological reasons explain why we’re mesmerized by these stories. For one, we are fascinated by how charm, wit, and manipulation are used over brute force to equally cause harm. And we like to dive into how liars use body language and specific messaging to achieve those aims. There’s nothing more interesting than listening to body language experts detail the specific signs to look for when analyzing a human threat. We are fascinated by how charm, wit, and manipulation are used over brute force to equally cause harm. Also, we can’t resist the display of confidence. For so many people, confidence is elusive. For scammers, it’s in ample supply. Imagine if they channeled that gift for good and taught people instead of stealing from them. But one route is a lot more lucrative… until you’re caught and thrown in prison. Which is another thing we love to see. A massive fall from grace. We love seeing the mighty plummet. Experts call this the “schadenfreude” effect, the German term for deriving pleasure from others’ misfortune. As humans, we’re gripped by social comparison. We feel that others don’t deserve the wealth, fame, and position they’ve acquired, so when they have a massive fall, we revel in it. And I think that’s certainly part of it. But it’s not just that. When someone is rotten to the core, there’s an immense amount of satisfaction in seeing actual justice enacted fairly. We rarely see it, so when we do, we pay very close attention. And sometimes, if you’re like me, we read about it over and over again. Just like with Elizabeth Holmes, I know the trajectory of this story, but it hasn’t stopped me from reading Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup and watching the Hulu miniseries The Dropout , starring Amanda Seyfried. So yes, Elizabeth Holmes still terrifies me. And not just because of her eyes, her voice, or even the extraordinary audacity of the Theranos con. It’s because I’m hooked. I just can’t look away. I’ve read the book, watched the shows, studied the interviews, and now I’m preparing to watch an entirely new documentary about her on October 16. Welcome to Scamdom. Apparently, I’m a member.