Review: Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You
Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You: The Murky World of Online Romance Fraud by Becky Holmes
My rating: 4/5
Blurb:
Online romance fraud is a problem across the globe. It causes financial and emotional devastation, yet many people refuse to take it seriously. This is the story of one middle-aged woman in a cardigan determined to understand this growing phenomenon.
No other woman has had so many online romances – from Keanu Reeves to Brad Pitt to Prince William – and Becky Holmes is a favourite among peacekeeping soldiers and oil rig workers who desperately need iTunes vouchers. By winding up scammers and investigating the truth behind their profiles, Becky shines a revealing, revolting and hilarious light on a very shady corner of the internet.
Featuring first-hand accounts of victims, examples of scripts used by fraudsters, a look into the psychology of fraud and of course plenty of Becky’s hysterical interactions with scammers, this is a must-read for anyone who needs a reminder that Keanu Reeves is NOT in love with them.
Review:
[I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
This book was pretty interesting, with just the right dose of humour for me: with a dash of fun, but without detracting from the topic itself which, all in all, is quite serious. It’s nothing academic, stemming instead from the author’s personal dabbling with Twitter and other online endeavours, and deciding at some point to make fun of the scammers (why not get a laugh out of them, after all) and, from there, to see if she could engage some of them into revealing more about their motives and their methods.
In a way, it was nothing really new to me (I’ve been a follower for years of several YouTube channels, including Sandoz, about various online scams, so most romance-based types of fraud is something I understand well enough now). Still, it provided an entertaining read, and, more important, it could be of real value to someone who has just started to get interested in this, and needs to learn the “basics”, so to speak.
The book also emphasises how it’s not about being “too naive” or “too stupid” (you know, the typical victim blaming our societies like to indulge in–I wonder if the same people who say that would also call themselves stupid for allowing themselves to be mugged in the street). You can be a police officer or with a whole life of romantic relationships and experience behind you, and still have a blind spot. Indeed, it is very easy to think that from our little corner of safety, when we’re not confronted to it ourselves, sure… but no one is ever completely immune to having a bad spell, a tense period in their life when they could do with a friendly and/or romantic shoulder… and scammers of all kinds are very, very talented when it comes to smelling a prey and pounce on it, insinuating themselves into the chinks in the armor. (People saying “this will never happen to ME because I’m too smart”: good for them if their lives are so perfect that they never find themselves in a spot where they could become vulnerable… but, nope, it’s still not about being smart. Also, let’s not become complacent, that’s how we also become easier to manipulate.)
I would’ve liked the book to devote a little more room to scammers’ circumstances as well, though, especially when it comes to South Asia: there is a real dimension of human trafficking going on as well (people getting lured into “scammers’ compounds” on the false pretense of a genuine job, and finding themselves held there against their will, literally enslaved and forced to scam others online for fear of being beaten, or worse). It’s not all black or all white here. But I guess this is a good topic for another book, after all.