The Warrior Eli Hoax Part 2 with Taryn Wright
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea, and we are back this week with the second half of my conversation with writer and hoax hunter Taryn Harper Wright. If you haven't listened to part one yet, please go listen to that first. Last week, we talked about how Taryn got into hoax hunting and delved into the Warrior Eli saga, which is a story that she broke. And today we are getting into how this whole thing snowballed for her and having a broader discussion about how our online lives, both real and fake, have evolved since the 2010s. I will have updates on season seven, as well as a launch date for you very soon. And in the meantime, if you need more Nobody Should Believe Me In Your Life, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon, where you can find a ton of bonus content, including our discussion about a big digital hoax story from last year, the Kendra Licari saga.
As always, thank you for listening. Now here's the rest of my conversation with Taryn Wright.
What is the Warrior Eli case and why is it significant?
Hey, it's Andrea. It's come to my attention that some of you have been served programmatic ads for ICE on my show. Now, podcasters don't get a lot of control over which individual ads play and for whom on our shows, but please know that we are trying everything we can to get rid of these by tightening our filters. And if you do continue to hear them, please do let us know. In the meantime, I want it to be known that I do not support ICE. I am the daughter of an immigrant. I stand with immigrants. Immigrants make this country great. Yeah. And in one of your interviews that I was reading, you talked about how there was a young woman that you had been following and you felt that she might be at risk of self-harm if you exposed her.
And so can you talk about sort of how you handled that situation? Yeah.
um that was right near christmas and we were looking it was definitely something i can't remember the actual details of the hoax i ended up obviously not writing about it but you know we found her like real facebook and we found a real blog that she was writing on um all of a sudden the blog as we were looking at it and i was kind of getting ready to write about it the blog turned really dark and she was talking about self-harm and um suicidal ideation so i called the police in the city that she lived in and ended up having her committed for 72 hours or 48 hours or whatever it is um and then ended up never writing about it but again like i certainly never thought on mother's day when i like ran into this whole thing that that would be all together i had four people hospitalized for hold for psychological holds
So that's rough. I mean, like... It's a lot to carry. It's a lot to carry. And again, like, I really do measure my impact, you know? Like, I don't want to do something that's net negative, for sure.
How has online deception evolved since the 2010s?
And it turned out... I mean, it was just... Toward the end of it, the internet was definitely getting meaner. People were, I feel in a way, a little bit responsible because, like, all these... Reddit groups and stuff popped up that were like, this person has a child with cancer, but they asked for too many toys. Like they asked for puzzles and. Oh yeah. Can you, can you talk about that?
Because I think like this is, this is a really interesting piece because especially, you know, for us, because, you know, these are just issues that we constantly struggle with and, you know, we're always weighing that, that, um, you know, on balance, is this the right thing to do? And I think, you know, obviously in our case, we're talking about people with real children that are really harming. And so that is obviously a very strong sort of moral imperative to expose it because that is, you know, especially because it can be very hard to get anyone to intervene in these situations. And so just at least having that person's name out there, provides some measure of protection and kind of eyes on the child.
And that's kind of our ethos on the show. But even with that, we're always concerned about what that exposure is going to do to the perpetrator, what effect that might have on them and the people around them and how things might just go sideways in sort of ways that we didn't
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:04–1:07
2
What is the Warrior Eli case and why is it significant?
1:07–2:59
3
How has online deception evolved since the 2010s?
2:59–8:17
4
What ethical dilemmas arise from exposing online hoaxes?
8:17–14:31
5
How does hoax hunting impact the mental health of those involved?
14:31–20:07
6
What are the responsibilities of storytellers in discussing sensitive topics?
20:07–24:47
7
How does attention serve as a currency in today's digital landscape?
24:47–30:32
8
What are the psychological implications of Munchausen by Internet?
30:32–52:01