Elizabeth Holmes has fans who sell merch: she rose up in an industry of old men
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty last week of four out of 11 counts of fraud, mostly relating to defrauding investors. She faces up to 20 years in federal prison, assuming her sentences are concurrent. Experts say she’s likely to get 14 to 17 years and will surely appeal.
Some of the women who attended the trial are fans of Holmes who call themselves “Holmies” and dress like her in black turtlenecks and messy blonde ponytails. It turns out that she has other supporters who sell merchandise on Etsy with sayings like “girl boss” and “I wish Elizabeth Holmes had an MLM.” Only some of these are sold ironically. The owner of an Etsy shop called “We Are Elizabeth Holmes” spoke to Business Insider about her business. She called Holmes “a femme fatale who rose up in an industry of old stuffy men and beat them at their own game.”
Elizabeth Holmes… still has the support of some fans who call themselves “Holmies” — and hail Holmes as a “Girl Boss.”
“We love her because her story is a villain origin story that we can all relate to,” a representative of an Etsy shop called We Are Elizabeth Holmes who asked to remain anonymous due to the controversial community, told Insider.
The Etsy shop sells Holmes merchandise, including T-shirts and mugs, some with now-infamous quotes including: “First they think you’re crazy, then they fight you, then you change the world.”
“She’s a femme fatale who rose up in an industry of old stuffy men and beat them at their own game,” they said, adding that the conviction “doesn’t change the way we feel about her.”
The Etsy store representative called Holmes’ guilty verdict “harsh” but “fair.”
Fans of Holmes are mostly trolling, with a sprinkling of genuine respect.
The Holmes fandom, which Insider first reported on in September, appears to be small but mighty.
On September 9, at the start of her trial, three women dressed in Holmes’ iconic black turtleneck and blonde bun look were photographed waiting outside the court to catch a glimpse of her. Dorothy Atkins, a senior reporter at Law 360, said in a tweet that the women told her they were “fans.”
But many of Holmes’ fans seem to support her ironically. Insider has found two active Facebook pages, one which is satirical and pretends to post as Holmes and another that calls itself an “unofficial fan page.” The fan page has 2,785 members but has not been updated since October 24, 2021.
Still, there are pockets of folks with a hint of genuine respect for Holmes. TikTok creator Serena Shahidi, who has 424,000 followers and frequently posts about Holmes, told Insider in September that her story can be seen as a feminist issue, as it’s empowering to see a woman be such an audacious villain.
“There is something kind of progressive about the idea that a woman in the news isn’t playing by anyone’s rules,” she said.
The owner of an Instagram account called @elizabethholmesupdates, Annuncia Roberts, previously told Insider that the fandom grew from the situation being “almost funny.” Roberts, who is mostly trolling with the memes she posts about Holmes, also said she thought Holmes taking money from wealthy people was “satisfying.”
In a recent satirical Instagram story after the verdict, Roberts said it was a “dark day” and people should show support for “Lizzie” by donning their “best black turtleneck.”
One TikTok user named Caroline Dunlap, who uses the handle @ygdunlap, posted a video on January 4 saying Holmes was “#1 in my heart,” as her actions were “unprecedented for a woman.”
Dunlap added that Holmes was “epic” for modifying her voice to be lower and “scheming” secretaries of state. It has 134,000 views.
In the comments, though, Dunlap clarified that she did not condone the damage Holmes caused and understood she was “100% guilty.”
I don’t care about people like Henry Kissinger and Betsy DeVos getting defrauded, I might understand a little if people were celebrating the terrible rich people being fleeced, but patients were hurt by Theranos’ unreliable blood test results. Employees of Theranos were harmed too, and their former chief scientific officer died by suicide. Holmes took it as far as testing centers in Walgreens and ignored repeated warnings by scientists that the technology was not ready. She knew exactly what she was doing. I guess there are a lot of women who wish they had Holmes’ kind of nerve to pull off fraud on a massive scale. I don’t think you can separate that from the harm she did. Also, I only just learned that her father once worked for Enron. Of course he did.
This is a parody of Live, Life, Love.
I sort-of understand this as a dig at MLM culture, but why would you spend $25 on a t-shirt if you didn’t admire this woman?
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