WIRED plans to use its first Book Club livestream to talk about online romance scams, a subject where the internet’s usual gift for connection gets repurposed into fraud, trust-hacking, and heartbreak.
The event is scheduled for July 16 at 12 pm ET, or 9 am PT, according to WIRED. It will feature WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs in conversation with Carlos Barragán, author of The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers.
WIRED says readers can submit questions in the comments on the event page before the livestream. The stream itself will run on that page, and WIRED says a replay will be posted afterward for subscribers who cannot attend live.
Who is on the panel
Knibbs is a senior writer at WIRED. Her stated beats include prediction markets, media’s future, and how artificial intelligence is changing the internet. She also leads the WIRED Book Club.
Barragán is a reporter and researcher at The New York Times, based in Madrid, according to WIRED. He previously worked as a reporter at El Confidencial and earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. The Yahoo Boys is his first book.
WIRED describes the book as Barragán’s account of traveling to Lagos and spending time with a group of young scammers. The result, as WIRED frames it, is a reported look at the people behind Nigerian romance scams, the deception involved, and the emotional damage that online fraud can produce.
Access is tied to subscriptions
The livestream is being offered as a subscriber benefit, according to WIRED. Non-subscribers are directed to buy a subscription for access to the livestream and the publication’s broader paywalled coverage.
WIRED is also using the event to steer readers toward its Book Club newsletter and archive. The publication says readers can catch up on previous Book Club discussions, sign up for future reading prompts, and view earlier livestreams on topics including AI’s effect on work and big tech’s links to the military.
The practical details are straightforward: submit questions in the event comments, return to the page at the scheduled time, and sign in with a WIRED subscription. Romance scams are built on attention and access. This livestream, less sinisterly, is also built on access.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
