Scamapalooza with Nicholas J. Johnson

I’ve been sick for the past few months. Which is why there has been an episode of a Scamapalooza in a little while.

Instead, I’ve been spending a lot of time in bed feeling sorry for myself while trawling tiktok.

Among the craft videos, slime reviews and video game analysis, I came across a video of a young academic making iced coffee while explaining his research into why some people detect misinformation on social media while others let it slide.

Is it an education issue? A psychological block? Or do people just lack the proper motivation?

On this episode of Scamapalooza, I talk to Steven Rathje about his research into fake news, his one point one million followers, and how to fix the problem of truth on social media.

He also gives me genuinely useful ideas on the types of TikTok content my followers would want to see.

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Magicians have secrets that you don’t see on stage. I’m not talking about HOW they do the tricks—the trapdoors and mirrors—but the mundane secrets that make the show happen. 

The tour schedules, the marketing plans, the box office reports and the horror stories of gigs that went off the rails. 

Kent Blackmore, digs up those secrets. An author and magic historian, Kent has dedicated his life to telling the stories of Australia’s most colourful figures. 

From William Fraser, the Convict Conjurer, to magic superstars like Les and Esme Levante, Blackmore has spent decades piecing together posters, newspaper articles, and ephemera to explore not just their stage personas but the stories of people behind magic.

KENT’S WEBSITE: https://sydneymagic.net/

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If I had an origin story as a magician/con artist/science communicator it would be me, in the early 2000s, hunching over my computer trying to count how many times a basketball is being thrown while completely missing the full-size gorilla walking right through the middle of the shot.

The creation of psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, The Invisible Gorilla video went viral and the research paper become infamous, winning the pair an ig nobel award in 2004.

Now, Daniel and Christopher are back with a new book Nobody’s Fool an exploration of all the ways human beings are deceived and a few ideas on how to avoid it!

On this episode of the podcast, we talk about the book, the gorilla, and the best ways to avoid being taken for a ride.

The Book

My Website

Imagine it's 1850 and you live in a rural area, far away from doctors and the latest advances in medical technology.

And then you get sick. What would you do?

It's this fear that gave rise to The Snake Oil Salesmen, travelling hucksters who sold ointments, tinctures, tablets and the eponymous snake oil. 

In this episode, I talk to historian Dr Jo Clyne about snake oils (both real and fake), electric hairbrushes, and the weirdest treatment for non-existent tapeworms you've ever seen.

Support the show

Jo's facebook page

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I busted my cat scratching the couch yesterday. As soon as she caught my eye, she stopped scratching and started to stretch instead, acting as if she’d hadn't just been digging her claws into our brand new four seater.

The question is, did she KNOW she was trying to deceive me?

Or did it just look like that through my human eyes?

Lixing Sun is the man with the answers. A professor of biology at Central Washington University and the author of The Liars of Nature and The Nature of Liars, Lixing's work explores how and why animals deceive.

On this episode of the podcast, we talk about why the Navy painted zebra stripes on their ships during world war 2, why a duck would want to see on Volleyball and how cuckoos and warblers negotiate peace in an egg switching arm race.

Lixing's Book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691198606/the-liars-of-nature-and-the-nature-of-liars

My Site: www.njjohnson.com.au

I’m often asked what my favourite con artist movie is and I always have a different answer. 

Usually, I’ll say Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men or David Mamet’s House of Games. 

If I’m feeling a little pretentious I might name drop Fellini’s Il Bidone or Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket.

At the same time, I also have a soft spot for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Paper Moon, and Brother’s Bloom.

However, if you were to ask me what the WORST con artist movie of all time was, I have an answer The Sting 2.

Released a decade after the original with none of the original cast, The Sting 2 is a mess.

With a nonsensical plot and a complete lack of charm, The Sting 2 is a forgotten film that deserves to be forgotten.

On this podcast episode, I talk to Nick Mason from The Weekly Planet podcast about why I hate this movie so much and find out whether The Sting 2 deserves my disdain.

(Throughout the interview I repeatedly refer to Mac Davies as Mac King. Mac Davies is one of the stars of The Sting 2. Mac King is a comedy magician I once saw eat a guinea pig on stage in Las Vegas. My apologies to Mr King.)

If I told you that “the cafeteria is permanently closed for the schnitzel inventory.” what would you think I was saying?

If your Russian, the chances are you’d know exactly what I was getting at.

The novel The Little Golden Calf is the story of Ostap Bender a con artist trying to become a millionaire in 1920s Soviet Russia, a time when millionaires aren’t supposed to exist. 

Little read in the rest of the world, the book is a classic in Russia. It’s taught in schools, there are multiple movie and TV adaptions, statues of the main characters can be found in towns across the country, and lines from the book have made their way into usage,

Face with anything that’s not all it's cracked up to be, a Russian might say “No, this is not Rio de Janeiro.”. Dodgy enterprises are labelled “horns and hoods” or “Children of Lt. Schmidt”.

On this episode, I talk to Maya Vinokour from the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU about the book, its history and what it can tell us about Putin, Trump, and 21st-century satire.

PATREON: www.patreon.com/user?u=34623445

MY SITE: www.njjohnson.com.au

MAYA's WORK: www.as.nyu.edu/faculty/maya-vinokour.html

Have you ever had to deal with corporate bullshit?

Had your projects “put on the back burner”?

Or had your job “right-sized”? 

Also, what the hell is “disruption?”

Ian McCarthy is the Professor of Innovation and Operations Management at Simon Fraser University.

His paper Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing with workplace bullshit introduced the C.R.A.P Framework, a system for organisations to reduce the amount of bullshit in the workplace.

In this episode, I talk to Ian about how organisations deal with the problem of B.S. and what, if anything, workers can do to make their lives less difficult.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34623445

This Place Is Full of It: https://t.co/yq2McRbmgJ

Confronting Indifference Toward Truth: https://t.co/Fkcenv1Eie

Me: https://linktr.ee/nicholasjjohnson

If I had to guess what the cardinal rule for card counters was, “Don’t draw attention to yourself” would be way up there.

While card counting isn’t illegal, casinos aren’t too keen on having players use probability to actually win at blackjack.

Flying under the radar seems like common sense.

What I wouldn’t expect is for a successful card counting to share his experiences on youtube in a wildly successful series of videos.

Well that’s just what Steven Bridges has done.

Since 2018, Steven has been recording his experiences as he went from card counting novice to professional counter.

On this episode of Scamapalooza I talk to Steven about how he balances counting cards undetected while racking up millions of views on youtube.

STEVEN’S YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/channel/UCqK0ukwGsTDh7sHih1OmLJA

MY WEBSITE: www.njjohnson.com.au

Every other week, I am sent a video of someone playing The Shell Game. Maybe it's a cat finding a single treat under three cups, or maybe it's a magician impressing audiences with hand-carved replica walnuts and silicone peas.

However, despite being one of the most famous scams in the world, The Shell Game is also one of the most misunderstood. Even the name is misleading, as it is rarely performed with actual shells and it is definitely not a game. It's a scam that you cannot win.

Every year, tourists lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on this simple wager. In this episode of Scamapalooza, I talk to Nick Stein, a.k.a. The Crooked Croupier, about how the scam works, why it's so profitable, and why, despite its notoriety, it still manages to take so much money.

NICK'S WEBSITE: https://www.crookedcroupier.com/

MY WEBSITE: www.conman.com.au