We will remember the 2010s as a grifter’s paradise. These were the years when our collective sense of objective reality totally fell apart and when politics, business, technology, culture and even ordinary life fell fully under the sway of a new breed of swindler, huckster, influencer, troll and hacker.
Scams and fakery were not just ascendant this decade — they were often the dominant story line. It was a time of “life comes at you fast” and “milkshake duck.” The primary feeling of the 2010s was one of punch-drunken disorientation, of always having the rug pulled out from under you. And this was the big lesson of the 2010s: Almost nothing is as it seems. Doubt everything. Trust no one.