There is No Ethan: A Book With a Lasting Impact
For my 2025 goal of reading 52 books and documenting it in blog posts, I typically write one or two posts about each book and move on. For my latest book, There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari, I have so far written seven blog posts.
I’ve decided I will keep writing blog posts about a book as long as I have things to say.
The topics discussed in There is No Ethan are relevant to the modern world and yet not well enough understood. These topics include the ethics of (false) identity, emotional manipulation, online relationships, and the real-world harm of our online lives.
Asking Bigger Questions
Many of my thoughts on this topic are questions, not answers. These thoughts occupy my mind for the sake of the author and the other women, as well as myself.
My master’s degree is in a field that straddles technology and society. In my off-hours, my mind often wanders to the ways technology can be a means of impacting people thousands of miles away that you will never meet; how this can be used for good or evil.
For a random book that I picked up, There is No Ethan sure got me thinking. It is a representation of my uneasiness with the modern, digital world and the role we play in each other’s lives.
Immeasurable & Unquantifiable Costs
In the book the author discusses what she lost to the catfish. The catfish never asked anything of her financially, but instead took her time, trust, vulnerability, intimacy, mental health, and sense of identity. The catfish duplicated this behavior with several women.
What is that worth? More than money? What is the opportunity cost of all this? Can the difference between mental health and devastation be measured? If it cannot be measured then the effects will be underestimated even though peoples’ lives were devastated.
It also made me think about how quickly trust is given to others. As well as the extent to which nefarious parties will go to for the sake of the ruse. The catfish in There is No Ethan must have spent thousands of hours playing that false persona and yet never asked for money. Why? Imagine how much good could’ve been done if they chose to spend that time productively.
Messy Bun Book Lover
(Originally posted on Apr. 17, 2025)
To read more thoughts on There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari, you can follow these links:
- #8 Reflections on “There is No Ethan”
- Recognizing Abuse Online is Hard
- Why Do Smart People Get Scammed?
- Why is it Always a Health Crisis?
- The Importance of Healthy Relationships
- When Intelligence Meets Manipulation
- Conveniently Timed Sorry’s
There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari is available here.
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