Two Anti-Heroes: Russian Spammer Vardan Kushnir and Jay Gatsby

            The real life tale of Vardan Kushnir, is especially intriguing because of how closely the downfall of the Russian spammer matched that of Jay Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character in The Great Gatsby. This is a most appropriate topic, with coming the release of The Great Gatsby film in May.

            Both rose from humble beginnings: Gatsby was raised by farmers in North Dakota, Kushnir by a single mother in Armenia. Both had great dreams, Gatsby wanted wealth and Kushnir wanted to be “like Bill Gates.” Their dreams takes dark paths, however; Gatsby sells alcohol illegally, Kushnir spams thousands. Gatsby’s parties become renown on Long Island for their drinking and raucousness, Kushnir became known for expensive fashion and orgies. Both create enemies during their ascension who shoot them to death on a summer night.

            Perhaps they feel so similar because of how their environments related. Gatsby came of age in the gang-ridden age of the Roaring 1920s, Kushnir in the exceedingly corrupt post-Communist 1990s Russia.  Both decades resulted from an artificial lawlessness, the former from American prohibition, and the latter from the fall of the Soviet Union.

            Additionally, the development of the Internet in the 1990s created a frontier not dissimilar form the American West on the 19^th century. Internet hackers created havoc in a world without police. Kushnir sent up to 7 million emails a day, filling a single persons’ email with 50 emails. The only way to stop Internet rogues was for the people to put enforcing the norms into their own hands. This was most often done by-hacking the perpetrator and therefore ending their reign solely on the web. In the case of Kushnir, however, it grew past cyberspace and to real life murder.

            The tales of Gatsby and Kushnir are most distressing because the characters could be considered products of their environments. The possibilities of opulence in a lawless society would be enticing to most. In the end, however, there were few left to care. Gatsby’s father and a friend were the only ones to attend his funeral. And probably the only person sorrowful for Kushnir’s death was his mother.