Today in Dabs

I may have set expectations a little high. Based on my pitch, Michael later told me, he’d imagined us cruising California in something resembling “a Beyoncé tour bus.” Instead, our 2013 Ford Econoline E-150, with a psychedelic jungle-scene paint job, resembled a Rainforest Cafe on wheels. Thanks to a huge acid yellow and electric blue bug-eyed chameleon perched just behind the driver’s door, it looked like a vehicle a mobile vape company might use to dispense free samples, or something a person might drive to let onlookers know: Here is someone willing and able to perform unlicensed aquarium repairs — for the right price.

Buoyed by the strength of Milla’s love, Kaplan contemplated why he hadn’t yet completed any big transactions. He started to believe that the glove companies were intentionally sowing chaos, sabotaging deals and brokers in order to stimulate demand and drive up the price of their products. 

“If you take a marketplace and flood it with disinformation, the people who are really looking for that product get desperate very quickly, and when people are desperate, they’ll pay any price,” he said. It reminded him of a gig he’d had many years back, in a “ruse room” at a recruiting firm. His job was to call hiring managers and pretend to be various job applicants, all of whom would flake on their interviews, driving the hiring manager crazy, such that when his recruiting firm ultimately called and offered a real and reliable applicant, that person was much more likely to get the job.

To some friends and advocates, Instagram and TikTok have become a lifeline, especially when the news cycle dies out and police investigations lose steam. They offer a way of telling stories that go beyond the sterile facts on a missing poster or a wanted sign, a way to depict women dubbed “Jane Doe” as multidimensional humans with infectious laughs and goofy dance moves. And because TikTok’s algorithm serves up a unique sequence of videos from users who don’t necessarily follow one another, TikToks can reach an incredibly wide audience — fast. This is why, to some criminologists, using the app to fish for a murder suspect can be dicey…

Yet the proliferation of cold cases on social media makes perfect sense to Tamborra, who sees it as a natural evolution in Americans’ fascination with crime — particularly when it hits close to home. “We have so many stories of families putting pressure on departments; why wouldn’t they then turn to social media?” Tamborra says. “Now the problem obviously is: Why should they have to?”