Business · Wired
This Scammer Applied an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men
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Like many medical school students, Sam was broke.
Key facts
- Every Reel the reporter posted was getting 3 million views, 5 million views, 10 million views
- I was spending maybe 30 to 50 minutes of my day, and I was making good money for a medical student,” he says
- Though Sam has never lived in the United States, he became an assiduous student of MAGA ideology
- And between Fanvue subscriptions and selling MAGA-themed T-shirts (one sample message reads ”PTSD: Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats”), Sam estimates he was making a few thousand dollars a month
Summary
The 22-year-old aspiring orthopedic surgeon from northern India got some money from his parents, but he says he spent most of it subsidizing his licensing exams, and he’s still saving up to hopefully emigrate to the US after graduation. Sam, who requested a pseudonym to avoid jeopardizing his medical career and immigration status, tried a few things, with varying degrees of legitimacy and success. But when Sam started posting generic photos of a beautiful, scantily clad woman on Instagram, he was dismayed to find that none of the content was hitting. Sam says he presented Gemini with a few possible options to help his model stand out, and the chatbot selected one in particular: the “MAGA/conservative niche,” referring to it as a “cheat code.” Plus, it said, “the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal.