Elizabeth Warren's George Costanza moment

While fibbing and bragging are ancient, today’s transgressors are getting caught because of the tension between two postmodern poles. At one end is the desperate need for personal differentiation in an age of self-surveillance where any non-entity can shamelessly become a pundit or “brand.” At the other end is the abundance of information — true and false — that is now available to us with the tap of a Send key or an anonymous email from a Kinko’s to a nasty reporter.

Today’s concoctions bring to mind the adventures of serial fabricator George Costanza. Among other deliberate misrepresentations, the “Seinfeld” character posed as the architect who designed “the new addition to the Guggenheim” (adding the flourish: “It didn’t take very long either”) and a marine biologist.

The main difference between Costanza’s fabrications and the others may be that he made this claim before the Internet boom. In the world of “Seinfeld” no one could type in “Costanza,” “Guggenheim” or the name of his fictional alter ego, “Art Vandelay,” into Google and check him out. Google was founded, after all, the same year “Seinfeld” bowed. The targets of George’s lies had to wait for him to blow himself up, which he reliably did.

In today’s climate, a fabrication or embellishment collides with the metastatic phenomenon of mainstream and online media, and becomes a trillion lies.