grifts gatekeep themselves. it's part of how they thrive. the on-boarding only catches people who have the vulnerability needed to buy in & stay bought in. people who won't buy in don't buy in. the people who have bought in are, essentially by definition, the type of person who would buy in.

if someone's grift involves positioning themselves as an authority, & you know enough to investigate that claim & find reason to reject it, you weren't the audience. the grift doesn't need you. you don't have the vulnerability. the grift is only looking for the people who would get trapped by it, so it can trap them. simple enough, in a blunt way.

everyone has something they know little enough about that someone could lie to them about it & they'd have no reason to know. sometimes, that liar can tell you that they're the only person who can tell you that thing. if you have the right vulnerabilities, you might go, ohh gosh... it's a very important thing, too, isn't it? that's why i'm here! i should listen. thank goodness i found the only person who can tell me the thing i wanted to learn.

& then that keeps happening, & the people who know it isn't true aren't invited to the discords & patreon comments, & the liar keeps saying, "this is so awful. people keep getting in the way of me trying to tell you the stuff you want to know. i need your help, i need your money, i need your teeth & claws & anything else you can use to defend the precious & important thing we have here, because-- remember-- it's the only one like it."

the illusion of authority can be broken, but it won't break itself. you can invest social capital intro trust, & it will pay dividends. if i weren't trustworthy, why would so many people trust me? huh? that's what i thought-- now, about that help, that money, those teeth & claws?

what makes the celluloid closet (1995) or the celluloid closet (1981) more trustworthy than a james somerton video? this isn't a trick question. there's an answer to it. there's a skill that can be developed around that answer. some people don't have it. how do you teach them? how do you present it in a way that goes beyond "oh no, oh gosh-- you trusted the wrong person. ok, all you need to do is trust me when i tell you who you can REALLY trust"? it feels like the same act. you're listening to someone else tell you something they know, & you're believing them. how do you know who to believe? these aren't trick questions. if there's something you know how to do, some people don't know how to do it.

can books lie? can movies lie? do youtubers always lie? did you look up every video hbomberguy referenced? did you compare them to the plagiarized articles yourself? did you verify the screenshots? did you watch the video, or are you just forming your opinions on how other people talk about it? what's different? why do you trust him? why do you trust the posts you've seen recounting it? these aren't trick questions. they're not meant to evoke guilt or self-recrimination. they're just pointing out the tongue in your mouth or the nose in the middle of your vision, if you've forgotten they're there, if you've so fully naturalized a skill that you forgot some people might not have it, if you've seen someone else trusting someone you wouldn't & thought, "how silly of them; i never just take things on trust".

it's good to give people tools. it isn't enough if they don't know when to use them, or how. you can hand someone a hammer & they can hold it as a counter-weight as they keep trying to push the nail into the wood with their free hand. some people just need to be taught how to hold the hammer. some people need to be taught how to recognise the nail.

& when someone's been manipulated, try not to be more annoyed with them for "falling for it" than you are at the manipulator.