Member-only story
Catfish With a Side of AI
Was ‘Amanda Vance’ an attempt to sign me up to an adult content site?
Most of us get some spam messages on social media from obviously fake accounts like Juliex22269 or something similar. The goal is usually to charm us into handing over personal data, or money, or our souls.
But this follower on another writing platform/social network was different. Her name was Amanda Vance, not even Amandakissesxoxo. She was cute, but not so much so that she looked like a paid model.
She seemed to be sharing left-wing posts from other users, so I was fairly confident she wasn’t a fascist bot. I followed her back, and she messaged me right away:
“Can you be a bit more generous, and hit the subscribe button?”
But I did not.
Beyond the boring bot
Instead, I decided to challenge this user, who I was pretty sure was me. Why else would a 26-year-old woman suddenly take an interest in a grumpy 50-year-old writer like me? This is not Californication. I’m also not rich, or especially attractive.
So I wrote back that I’d subscribe, but only if she posted some original content.
