06-12-2026SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE

‘I hope this isn’t a marketing stunt.’ The destructive art of hacking attention—and what comes after

AI slop, fake fan accounts, media manipulation: Agencies and brands are juicing the Suspicion Economy. How we got here, and why there’s hope.

[Source Photos: alotofpeople/Adobe Stock, Proxima Studio/Adobe Stock]

At first glance, it’s just a middle-aged man eating a mountain of steak chunks at Arby’s. 

Look closer, though, and you start to notice something strange about this already supremely strange scene. The video, posted last October, came from a group of pranking young dudes who call themselves the Arby’s Boys. The account has posted hundreds absurdist videos—a car filled with Arby’s curly fries (caption: “Idk what to do”); an Arby’s cashier taking an order while playing with a finger skateboard (33,000 likes)—all designed to look like user generated content from 20-something guys with an........

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