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WORK TITLE: There Is No Ethan
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WEBSITE: https://www.annaakbari.com/
CITY: San Francisco
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LAST VOLUME: CA 411
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1979.
EDUCATION:New York University, bachelor’s degree; New School for Social Research, M.A., Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, consultant, entrepreneur, and sociologist. Formerly taught at New York University and Parsons: The New School for Design, New York, NY; founder of Sociology of Style, Sociology of TV, Splice, Bricoler Social Interaction Design, and Closet Catharsis; partner in HVCK (innovation consultancy), San Francisco, CA; creator of “Silicon Valley Insider’s Edge” video series. Served in the Peace Corps; member of jury for Gotham Book Prize; public speaker and guest on programs, including the All Out Show radio program.
AVOCATIONS:Karaoke, roller skating, going to the beach.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals.
SIDELIGHTS
Anna Akbari is an American writer, consultant, entrepreneur, and sociologist. She is the founder or cofounder of several companies, including Sociology of Style, Sociology of TV, Splice, Bricoler Social Interaction Design, and Closet Catharsis. Akbari is also a partner in a consulting firm called HVCK and the creator of the “Silicon Valley Insider’s Edge” video series. She has taught courses at New York University and Parsons: The New School for Design. She holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University and both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research. In an interview with Elena Rossini on the website No Country for Young Women, Akbari explained how she came to the field of sociology: “I took a very winding path toward sociology: I attended Interlochen Arts Academy, a performing arts boarding school, where I majored in theater; I then changed course and earned my undergraduate degree in Religious Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at NYU; then, after serving in the Peace Corps, I returned to school and completed an M.A. in Liberal Studies and finally earned a Ph.D. in Sociology (with an emphasis on Visual Sociology) from the New School for Social Research.” Akbari continued: “Ironically, I’d been writing and researching all of my thesis projects as a sociologist, before I ever actually found my way to the sociology department. So, when I did finally land there, it definitely felt like home.”
In 2016, Akbari released her first book, Startup Your Life: Hustle and Hack Your Way to Happiness. In this volume, she suggests that the principles that technology entrepreneurs use to build successful startups can be applied to one’s personal life. Akbari offers information about her own life and explains how she came to the realization that applying startup skills would help her to function better in many ways. She also provides case studies focusing on successful companies, including Netflix, Ralph Lauren, Zappos, and Instagram. Akbari concludes each chapter with short bits of advice to apply to one’s life or business.
In an interview with Emma Johnson for Forbes Online, Akbari stated: “This was the book I needed but couldn’t find when I was a recent graduate struggling to pull it all together and create fulfillment in my everyday life. So I embraced the startup mentality that guided me professionally and started actively applying it to my personal life. Concepts like experimentation, knowing when and how to pivot, and disrupting assumptions are all key to startup success—and I’ve discovered that finding lasting happiness at every stage of life is best achieved with the same framework that guides Silicon Valley startups.” Akbari added: “Operating like a startup boots personal happiness in three main ways. One, find joy in the process. Too often we live for long-term milestones or a singular end goal, with low expectations for satisfaction the other ninety-nine percent of the time. But the startup approach to living understands that the journey—not cashing out in the big final ‘exit’—is where wisdom is gained and sustainable happiness is cultivated.”
A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the book is supposed to be geared toward general life-improvement. However, the reviewer remarked: “Many of Akbari’s ideas are business- specific.” The same reviewer concluded: “Budding entrepreneurs should benefit greatly from Akbari’s sound guidance.” Prasanna Bidkar, a critic on the Non Fiction Book Reviews website, commented: “Most of the advice that the author shares is directly applicable to a business venture, and so are the examples shared in the book. But the most important message here is take control, but be ready to fail and experiment.” Bidkar also stated: “The book is generating gradual interest and most rate it as above average.”
(open new)Akbari shifted gears in her 2024 volume, There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish, a nonfiction work focused on a person who deceived numerous women on the internet. Akbari herself is among the three women mentioned in the book’s subtitle. She meets the man who called himself Ethan in 2010 on an online dating platform called OKCupid and is impressed with his abilities as a communicator. He sets himself apart from the other men on the platform by responding to messages promptly and seeming to be emotionally available. However, Ethan makes excuses not to meet in person that become increasingly unbelievable. Ultimately, Akbari stops responding to Ethan. She later begins communicating with two other women who had relationships with Ethan, and she learns that Ethan has behaved similarly with them. The three band together to discover that Ethan is actually a female medical student named Emily Slutsky and that she has deceived many others in addition to them. They decide to confront Slutsky about her online activities, as Akbari contemplates the moral issues Slutsky’s behavior causes to arise.
Katie J.M. Baker, contributor to the New York Times, commented: “There Is No Ethan is billed as a memoir, and it often reads like a true-crime thriller, but I think it is most meaningfully assessed as a piece of investigative journalism.” Baker added: “Akbari isn’t always an elegant writer, but I won’t soon forget this valiant attempt to hold a manipulator accountable.” Also discussing Akbari, a critic in Kirkus Reviews suggested: “She offers a riveting story that puts into perspective the dark dangers of forming online relationships.” The same critic described the book as “a truly terrifying cautionary tale for anyone involved in the online dating world.”(close new)
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2024, review of There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish.
New York Times, June 4, 2024, Katie J.M. Baker, “There Is No Ethan Is a Jaw-Dropping Tale of Digital Deception,” review of There Is No Ethan.
Publishers Weekly, October 17, 2016, review of Startup Your Life: Hustle and Hack Your Way to Happiness, p. 61.
ONLINE
Anna Akbari website, http://www.annaakbari.com (September 9, 2024).
Forbes Online, https://www.forbes.com/ (December 26, 2011), Emma Johnson, author interview.
Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (July 19, 2017), author profile.
No Country for Young Women, http:// nocountryforyoungwomen.com/ (June 24, 2011), Elena Rossini, author interview.
Non Fiction Book Reviews, http:// bookreviews.infoversant.com/ (December 20, 2016), Prasanna Bidkar, review of Startup Your Life.
Pennsylvania Convention Center Website, https:// www.paconvention.com/ (July 19, 2017), author profile.*
Dr. Anna Akbari is a sociologist, writer, speaker, and thought leadership advisor to high-profile individuals. She is the author of There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Uncovered America’s Biggest Catfish (June 2024), Startup Your Life: Hustle and Hack Your Way To Happiness, and the co-author of The Enneagram at Work: Unlocking the Power of Type to Lead and Succeed. She sits on the jury for the Gotham Book Prize.
Anna is a former professor in the department of Media, Culture, and Communication and the Visual Culture MA program at New York University, as well as Parsons School of Design. Her research focuses on visual and virtual self-presentation, identity construction, technology and human intersects, and happiness and well-being.
She is a frequent public speaker and media personality and has written for and been featured by The New York Times, CNN, Forbes, The Atlantic, TIME, The Economist, Financial Times, TED, Bulletproof Executive, Psychology Today, Vogue, Refinery29, Google Talks, and dozens more. She is a regular guest on SiriusXM's All Out Show.
Corporate consulting clients include Cisco, T3 Agency, Material (LRW), AT Kearney, Samsung, DIRECTV, Converse, Avon, Coca-Cola, Clorox, Lenovo, Tata Communications, SABMiller, Toyota, CableLabs, LG, YMCA Australia, Sprint, Vitamin Water, Pepsi, Beverage Marketing Corp., Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy, KBS+, Northstar, Sense Worldwide, and many more.
Though always a Californian at heart, Anna is a free-range global citizen who plays outside and sings karaoke as much as humanly possible. She donates her time speaking to and mentoring incarcerated and formerly incarcerated populations and is passionate about criminal justice reform.
QUOTED: "“There Is No Ethan” is billed as a memoir, and it often reads like a true-crime thriller, but I think it is most meaningfully assessed as a piece of investigative journalism."
"Akbari isn’t always an elegant writer, but I won’t soon forget this valiant attempt to hold a manipulator accountable."
Reading Anna Akbari’s memoir of online manipulation, you think you’ve seen it all — then you keep reading.
THERE IS NO ETHAN: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish,by Anna Akbari
I did not expect to be shocked by “There Is No Ethan.” Online deception has become so ubiquitous that it’s boring. By now, the term “catfish,” which was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary a decade ago, seems almost quaint. But the twists and turns in Anna Akbari’s book are outrageous. I read it in one sitting, then spent days recounting her story to anyone who would listen, unable to shake off my indignation on behalf of the author and her fellow victims.
The book begins in late 2010, when someone going by the name Ethan first messages Akbari, a sociologist teaching at New York University, on the online dating site OKCupid. Ethan’s photos are “approachably attractive” and his credentials seem impeccable: a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from M.I.T., a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, an exciting (albeit mysterious) job that involves working for both Morgan Stanley and the U.S. government that he describes as “stealing from the rich.” Akbari is most drawn to Ethan’s “eagerness to keep the conversation going.” A persistent and intuitive communicator, Ethan stands out among the city’s innumerable self-absorbed and flaky men. For weeks, they message each other nonstop.
But Ethan’s excuses for why he can’t meet in person grow increasingly implausible: first work, then weather, then a horrifying cancer diagnosis. When Akbari starts fact-checking and finds holes everywhere, Ethan chastises her: “You obviously distrust me right now, and when I’m going through such an ordeal, that’s really the last thing I need on my plate.” She wants to extricate herself but finds it impossible to ignore him; Ethan even persuades her to have cybersex. He offers to pay her rent. He asks her to go away with him for the weekend. When Akbari finally stops responding, she feels awful for abandoning Ethan before he has started chemotherapy.
Then Akbari connects with two other women whose (simultaneous) relationships with Ethan mirror her own. Soon she begins hearing from more of his victims, all professionals in their 30s. Ethan has strung some of them along for years.
Language is his weapon of choice, Akbari writes, “persuading and emotionally manipulating women with attention, affection and the promise of love and companionship because the thing many women, especially high-achieving women, lack most in this digital age — far more than access to money or sex — is meaningful romantic companionship.” Ethan’s victims have convinced themselves that he is real — and really cares for them — because he doesn’t reap any financial or physical sexual gain. He demands nothing except for, in one woman’s paraphrased words, “her time, openness and emotional vulnerability.”
Through some clever sleuthing (and an eerily portentous dream) the group discovers Ethan’s real identity. He isn’t a typical catfisher, a “wannabe influencer,” as Akbari puts it, but instead a “highly educated overachiever” with multiple Ivy League degrees.
The fact that Akbari has revealed Ethan’s identity in several outlets (initially in 2014) is telling; for the author this book is clearly as much a public reckoning as it is an act of closure. But for those who wish to preserve this mystery, stop reading now.
For everyone else? Ethan’s real identity is Emily Slutsky.
Akbari and the other women are blown away by the revelation that they have been corresponding with a woman. But Akbari feels most alarmed by the fact that Slutsky has been in medical school the entire time, training to be a doctor.
They decide to confront Slutsky and force her to seek psychological help, threatening to expose her history of serial manipulation. The questions mount. Will Slutsky confess? Why did she do it? And, if she’s revealed to her family and professional superiors, will anyone care? I won’t give away the answers here.
Given that Akbari wrote her doctoral dissertation on “aspirational identity,” it is bizarre that she barely mentions her own perspective as a sociologist until the book’s epilogue. When she does, she poses fascinating questions: What are the ethical boundaries of digital platforms? Is lying to create intimacy a violation of consent? When does inauthenticity become evil? And how should the law handle people who engage in virtual offenses that are not financially motivated, especially if the perpetrators hold positions of power over others, like doctors (Slutsky currently runs a women’s health center where she specializes in genetics and obstetrics/gynecology)? I wish Akbari had seriously explored these issues instead of spending so much time on the maddeningly similar experiences of Slutsky’s victims.
“There Is No Ethan” is billed as a memoir, and it often reads like a true-crime thriller, but I think it is most meaningfully assessed as a piece of investigative journalism.
“Can we be an ethical physician while also having a history of deceiving innocent people online?” Akbari asks. This question encapsulates everything that frustrated and compelled me about “There Is No Ethan.” Akbari isn’t always an elegant writer, but I won’t soon forget this valiant attempt to hold a manipulator accountable.
THERE IS NO ETHAN: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish | By Anna Akbari | Grand Central | 304 pp. | $30
PHOTO: (PHOTOGRAPH BY Mike McQuade FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Baker, Katie J.M. "‘There Is No Ethan’ Is a Jaw-Dropping Tale of Digital Deception." New York Times [Digital Edition], 4 June 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A797600949/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7bcfdd8c. Accessed 24 Aug. 2024.
QUOTED: "She offers a riveting story that puts into perspective the dark dangers of forming online relationships."
"a truly terrifying cautionary tale for anyone involved in the online dating world."
Akbari, Anna THERE IS NO ETHAN Grand Central Publishing (NonFiction None) $30.00 6, 4 ISBN: 9781538742198
A sociologist uncovers the tale behind one of the world's sneakiest catfish.
Akbari, a former professor at NYU and author of Startup Your Life, takes readers on an unforgettable journey into how she and two other women discovered the truth about the online catfish posing as "Ethan." The author wastes no time kicking off the propulsive narrative, dropping us right into an email conversation between the three female protagonists at the start of the book. Although the beginning section is somewhat confusing due to lack of information regarding the three women, once Akbari begins to detail her intense and intimate connection with Ethan, there is no putting this book down. The author met Ethan on an online dating website. As their intimacy deepened, she began to develop significant feelings for him--until she heard from two other women who both had their own personal histories with Ethan. At this point, countless questions boiled up to the surface. Akbari's attempt to answer them reads like a psychological thriller, as she documents her entire relationship with Ethan via a host of emails and chats. After multiple failed attempts to meet him and a wide variety of excuses, she was even more determined to figure out the mechanics behind this poisonous relationship. Ultimately, she wonders, who was she talking to, and what did he want? These two questions will burn in the back of readers' minds until the very end, when Ethan's true motives come to light. It's clear that once Akbari comprehended the depth of Ethan's deceit, she was dedicated to nothing but the truth, hopefully stopping Ethan from hurting more women in the process, and she offers a riveting story that puts into perspective the dark dangers of forming online relationships.
A truly terrifying cautionary tale for anyone involved in the online dating world.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Akbari, Anna: THERE IS NO ETHAN." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A797463280/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a908d05b. Accessed 24 Aug. 2024.