PRETEND

Genuinely nothing like it, my mom played the Ladonna series in the car on a 17 hour road trip, we listened to the whole thing together and i still relisten to the ladonna series at least twice every year :) Love ur show Javier, and im excited for everything thats to come!

PRETEND is mostly about people pretending to be someone else, but the landscape is usually more off-the-beaten—con-path than the usual true-crime con artist trail. It’s full of scammers, frauds, vengeful lowlifes, and, every so often, a “sacred cow” — or at least a poor man’s sacred cow (like LaDonna Humphrey or Frank Abagnale) takes their public mythology out back for some shaking up. Javier Leiva is sort of a combo of Don Quixote, Detective Columbo, and, for those who remember the show, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The Quixote part is his oddly cheerful, almost goofy knight-errantry energy. The Columbo/Kolchak part is that I suspect some of the people he investigates underestimate him. They think they’ve swatted him away, but then he comes back with another episode, and another, and another, until the essence of the con — or the lie, or the weird little empire — is exposed. That doesn’t mean there’s always a final “got his man/woman” ending with arrests and trials, not really that kind of show with black and white resolutions. His subjects are often too eccentric, borderline comically absurd, petty, slippery, or bizarre for that. A lot of the stories unfold almost in real time, so Javier’s pursuit becomes part of the story. The LaDonna Humphrey arc is a good example: fake identities, intimidation, true-crime status games, and behavior that would be almost comically absurd if it weren’t so cruel and damaging. PRETEND isn’t slick in the overly polished podcast way, and that’s mostly part of its appeal (though I could do with fewer generic music beds). Javier sometimes sounds almost giddy at the twists inside his subjects’ hard-to-fathom brand of twisted logic. He digs his mission. But I don’t hear him lose sight of fighting the good fight. And when he gets angry, as in the “I Beg Your Pardon” episodes, you can really hear it. The show has its ups and downs in the pursuit of truth and justice, but considering how consistently Javier slays at the windmills of con..? okay, maybe a bad analogy, but I’m keeping it. I always keep an ear out for PRETEND.

Javier does incredible investigations and reports on them so thoughtfully. He is completely engaging and entertaining, while also being very mindful of sensitive subjects and respectful with his interview subjects. I love listening to the podcast!

There’s nothing worse than leftist propaganda pushed as “journalism.” But when the pusher PRETENDS that’s not what he’s doing it’s lying and manipulation, a common tactic of far left radicals. He deceives with stories about maga grannies, ICE and Trump pardons while trying to say he’s just being a fair journalist. I’m sure others on the far left nod along, at home in their echo chamber. But the rest of the country living in reality is wondering where’s a story of Biden’s pardons? Corrupt people, millions of dollars, with an autopen. You’d think the autopen to pardon the most people ever from a man with dementia they tried to lie about is the epitome of pretending. Or to counter maga granny where’s the story about the numerous 2020 rioters that have since apologized for doing millions of dollars of damage - after becoming republicans? And wouldn’t the biggest pretenders be people sneaking into the country illegally and then hiding here while not paying federal taxes? You want to focus on ice, where’s the story from one of the hundreds of families that have been victims of violent criminals that have snuck in? If you’re so fair, let’s hear from them. Or let’s hear about the people ice is looking for, or do like CNN did under Obama: a day with ice, the hero version. But you won’t. Because you’re just another holier than thou liberal who just likes to hear himself talk. But it’s even worse because you deceptively try to convince your audience you’re just being fair; just being a balanced little journalist. But some of us can see you’re pretending. And I’m done.