The Hipster Grifter Peaked Too Soon

In the spring of 2009, Vice published a blog post, notorious even by its own standards, titled “Department of Oopsies!—We Hired a Grifter.” An employee had started chatting with the magazine’s new executive assistant, Kari Ferrell; after she reportedly began coming on to him over instant messages, he Googled her, only to find out that she was on the Salt Lake City Police Department’s most-wanted list. Instead of simply firing Ferrell, Vice outed her online, confessing that it probably should have done a cursory search before hiring someone with “less-than-desirable traits, like, say, five outstanding warrants for fraud.” Oopsie! Read it now and you might find the post unrepentantly confessional in a prescient kind of way, anticipating a future in which any sin or failure can be transfigurated as long as it makes for good-enough content.