42 min
The Grotto: Crypto, NFTs, & An Online Hellscape (Part 2) A Little Bit Culty
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- Society & Culture
This is episode is sponsored by Better Help.
On this week’s show, the second installment of our wide-ranging, in-depth, and ultimately hopeful talk with four people lured into The Grotto — a mostly online hub for digital art that turned into a kind of Ponzi cult with plenty of love bombing and possible fraud. Our guests — anonymous, but going by Charm, Kateryna, Shayna, and Fomo — say it all begins with Jaime Dubuar Dean, aka “@thr33som3s,” who is a supposed former professional baseball player-turned digital artist who used Discord to coerce people to invest in his NFTs. With each dollar spent on his art, he promised that his followers could get closer to him. Our guests will say that Dean used coercion, financial manipulation, and empty promises to draw them in. And then he took his power too far.
Our artists are mostly anonymous, but you can find Kateryna — and her incredible art — here and here.
Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.
Check out our lovely sponsors
Join ‘A Little Bit Culty’ on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah’s TEDTalk
CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Producer: Will Retherford
Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin
This is episode is sponsored by Better Help.
On this week’s show, the second installment of our wide-ranging, in-depth, and ultimately hopeful talk with four people lured into The Grotto — a mostly online hub for digital art that turned into a kind of Ponzi cult with plenty of love bombing and possible fraud. Our guests — anonymous, but going by Charm, Kateryna, Shayna, and Fomo — say it all begins with Jaime Dubuar Dean, aka “@thr33som3s,” who is a supposed former professional baseball player-turned digital artist who used Discord to coerce people to invest in his NFTs. With each dollar spent on his art, he promised that his followers could get closer to him. Our guests will say that Dean used coercion, financial manipulation, and empty promises to draw them in. And then he took his power too far.
Our artists are mostly anonymous, but you can find Kateryna — and her incredible art — here and here.
Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.
Check out our lovely sponsors
Join ‘A Little Bit Culty’ on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah’s TEDTalk
CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Producer: Will Retherford
Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin
42 min