A 22-year-old medical student in India said he raked in thousands of dollars running a fake conservative social media influencer — and after the accounts were eventually banned, he called the Americans who he scammed with the fake account “super dumb.”
The man, identified only as “Sam,” told Wired that he created a fully AI-generated persona named Emily Hart. The A.I. model then posed in bikinis while ice fishing, drank Coors Light, shot guns, and fired off pro-MAGA posts to millions of followers.
The account was a calculated scam job from the start.
Sam claimed he asked Google’s Gemini AI to help him find a profitable online niche. He claims the tool steered him toward conservative audiences, telling him that “the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal.” A Google spokesperson denied this, and said Gemini is designed to provide a range of viewpoints rather than audience-targeting advice.
Either way, Sam took the idea and ran with it.
“Every day I’d write something pro-Christian, pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-woke, and anti-immigration,” he said.
One post showed Hart firing a rifle with the caption: “If you want a reason to unfollow: Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported.”
Other posts show the A.I.-generated woman in an American flag bikini –
The account exploded. Emily Hart hit 10,000 followers within a month, with some Instagram reels racking up millions of views. Sam said he monetized the scheme by selling MAGA-themed T-shirts and opening an account on Fanvue, an OnlyFans competitor that explicitly allows AI-generated adult content. He used Elon Musk’s Grok AI to generate explicit images of the fake influencer and uploaded them for paying subscribers.
“I was spending maybe 30 to 50 minutes of my day, and I was making good money for a medical student,” Sam said. “In India, even in professional jobs, you can’t make this amount of money. I haven’t seen any easier way to make money online.”
While scamming his conservative followers, Sam showed nothing but contempt for them.
“The MAGA crowd is made up of dumb people — like, super-dumb people. And they fall for it,” he said.
Instagram eventually banned the Emily Hart account in February for “fraudulent” activity. A Facebook account remained live longer but has since been taken down. Sam said he had no regrets over the con.
“I don’t feel like I was scamming people,” he said.