There’s Only One Sector That’s DEI-friendly and Equal Opportunity
Whether it employs or not is a different matter altogether.
It was around the time I was blooming into late teen years at the cusp of my internet wonders and discoveries over an abysmal dial-up connection that I found a strange email in my Yahoo inbox—an account that’s been lost to time and ignorance.
I don’t remember much, to be honest, but there are a few details that did leave a massive impact:
It was a girl from some African country.
She wanted to be pen pals via email.
After a week and a half of exchange, she asked if I could help her.
She wanted help with her finances to escape her country.
She wanted me to contribute to save her in the name of friendship.
Today, anyone can recognize this recipe as just a regional twist in the classic Nigerian Prince playbook. But back then, to a young boy with no internet awareness yet unrestricted access, it could have blown up in my face. Thankfully, I was always skeptical of anyone warming up to me just to lend a few coins. It was altogether a different matter that I didn’t have savings to my name. (That totally did not influence my decision not to help the person behind the email. I swear.)
After all these years, however, I suddenly remembered this rather foundational lesson in internet security, but also realized something strangely important.
And this is exactly where I open doors for you, my dear reader, to the rabid ways my mind operates. Bear with me as I take you for a wild ride. Scams and scammers are the most diverse and equal opportunity.
Who You Are Doesn’t Matter
A long time ago, an English playwright penned a rather unremarkable yet philosophical line that became the bedrock of personal identity for the 20th and 21st centuries.
“To be, or not to be, that is the question” is how the famous speech by Shakespeare’s character Hamlet, in the eponymous play, begins. It’s also quite unfit for a world that’s come to respect Fafnir-like capitalists still crying gold in the disproven pillar of trickle-down economics.
Our identities have no meaning today. They’ve already been sold a million times over to businesses, teleoperators, loan sharks, banks, brick-and-mortar retailers, and scammers alike. It’s only the latter that uses these leaked details without any bias.
Let me explain: Whether you’re rich, middle class, agonizingly poor, or only have a single penny to your name, you will be scammed, no matter what.
And who scams you is also just as diversely random as the class preyed upon. It could be a homeless person, a beggar, a paraplegic, a street vendor, your next-door neighbour, your cat,… maybe even the girl you swiped right and matched with on Tinder.
Scams are truly DEI-friendly and equal opportunity. They don’t care about your colour, shape, class, creed, sex, gender, nationality, ethnicity, endangered status, gamer tag, X (formerly, and dearly missed, Twitter) profile, political affiliations, gambling addictions, TikTok recommendations, PlayStation over XBox preferences, or any such noises overcrowding and dumbing the society.
They only love one thing. And they’ll scam the scabs out of you just to make you bleed gold.
It’s a Global Enterprise
There’s a long-conceived notion that scammers are born in the hovels of India, where the darkness is so strong that not even a photon of light can scamper in reflections between two mirrors polished to perfection. It’s in these recesses of depravity, deprivation, and desire that scammers sprout out of the thicket of questionable morality and into the sunlight, ready to exact revenge.
But that’s plain silly. My country might be a hotbed for tele-scammers, but it’s not the only place in the world you’ll find those willing to swindle and part you with your hard-earned savings.
It was a blissfully bovine and biblically bleak morning of January when a beautiful nation boastful of its cultural loudness banged, in a bumbling fit of barbaric lunacy, their heads to invite Beelzebub to bequeath them with bestial frauds never before brought down upon beatific freedom lovers.
Got the hint? Here, let me tone down the satire: The U.S. of A. elected an S. of B. to inflict elaborate frauds and scam the common man into poverty. In my eyes, there’s no greater scammer than Trump in recent years. Why, just look at how he keeps on dodging the ire of the sensible while blindfolding his followers and bleeding dry the spirit and the people of America. His followers have mushroomed, running a racket so blatantly obvious yet painfully oblivious to much of the American populace.
What’s funny is that whether it’s Donald Trump ruining the pillars of government or an Indian scammer named Raj conning you into cleaning up your computer for a bill that can afford a new one, they’re all following the same playbook. Gone are the days of Nigerian princes begging for money or wanting to transfer their wealth into your account.
The scammers of this new dawn throw smoke and erect mirrors, such as illegal immigrants or malicious viruses, to create panic and urgency, perfect for extracting money in scores from anyone and everyone.
Doesn’t matter who you are or who they are. To be greedy or not to be? That, quite frankly, is the only question.
