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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Emily Hart, the bikini-wearing right-wing AI influencer, had captured the hearts, minds and more of MAGA men online. But her creator, Sam, had grown sick of the creepy messages and unsolicited explicit photos he’d received from Emily’s adoring fans. And he was about to be outed as a “scammer.” In this follow-up to last week’s episode, we dig into the downfall of the MAGA dream girl, the explosion of AI “thirst” grifts and why Sam says he shouldn’t be labeled as a “scammer” at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2485498705\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/author/ej-dickson/\">Ej Dickson\u003c/a>, senior culture writer at \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>“Sam,” creator of AI MAGA Influencer Emily Hart\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/\">This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men \u003c/a>— Ej Dickson, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/goose-a-new-gay-dating-app-appears-to-be-a-psyop/\">Goose, a New Gay Dating App, Appears to Be a Psyop\u003c/a> — Ej Dickson, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://inkstickmedia.com/how-indias-cyber-scam-industry-causes-global-havoc/\">How India’s Cyber Scam Industry Causes Global Havoc\u003c/a> — Hanan Zaffar, \u003cem>Inkstick\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/ai-pimping-industry-deepfakes-instagram/\">Inside the Booming ‘AI Pimping’ Industry\u003c/a> — Jason Koebler and Emanuel Maiberg, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/health-industry/hhs-exchange-visitor-program-visa-waiver-j1-h1b-delays-foreign-doctors-deadline/\">Delays in Visa Program Threaten Placement of Hundreds of Doctors in Underserved Areas\u003c/a> — Arielle Zionts, \u003cem>KFF Health News \u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/06/11/white-house-wants-more-doctors-but-its-immigration-policies-block-them/\">White House Wants More Doctors But Its Immigration Policies Block Them\u003c/a> — Stuart Anderson, \u003cem>Forbes\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/foreign-medical-residents-fill-critical-positions-at-u-s-hospitals-but-many-now-face-visa-issues\">Foreign medical residents fill critical positions at U.S. hospitals, but many now face visa issues\u003c/a> — Adithi Ramakrishnan and Devi Shastri, \u003cem>PBS News\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/indians-lead-uk-exit-wave-as-britain-s-migration-crackdown-begins-to-bite-126052200275_1.html\">Indians lead UK exit wave as Britain’s migration crackdown begins to bite | Immigration News\u003c/a> — Sunainaa Chadha, \u003cem>Business Standard\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Follow us on \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Instagram\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">TikTok\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do they help you learn about all the chronically online things you’re too scared to Google at work? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it. Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show. So this is actually the second part of our series on the saga of Emily Hart, an AI MAGA influencer, and Sam, the guy who created her. If you haven’t heard part one yet, check out last week’s episode. And just a heads up, this episode contains mentions of explicit sexual content. So listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We first met Sam in last week episode. He’s a 22 year old medical student from India, and he had been chasing side hustles in order to make extra cash while in school. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I needed some extra pocket money. I started first with YouTube shorts. I started making AI horror shorts, then Roblox, but like it didn’t work that way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was by far his most lucrative venture. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Clip of Emily Hart] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Hey, handsome, in this private ward, there are no supervisors and no rules. Just me, you, and whatever happens when these scrubs finally come off. \u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She was the MAGA dream girl. And she was completely AI-generated. She rapidly gained a following thanks to her Trump-supporting thirst traps. Every time Sam posted images of her ice fishing, shooting rifles, drinking beer, complete with an American flag bikini and bright red MAGA hat, her fans went wild. In just a few weeks, Emily had 15,000 followers on Instagram, over 20 million views on Reels and a small army of subscribers on FanView. That’s a site kind of like OnlyFans. And these guys literally paid to DM her. Well, really, paid to DM Sam. They didn’t know it was him, but they also didn’t seem to care that Emily wasn’t real. Sam was making a couple thousand dollars a month, so he wasn’t quite rolling in it, but that’s really good money for a student in India. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Initially, I enjoyed it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>What made it at less enjoyable for you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Actually it was a bit strange. It was a bit creepy like other male is talking to me in like, that way. It felt weird. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was getting sick of it. It started with the unsolicited dick pics. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then the unsolicited cum tributes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I’m like, what the hell is this guy doing? He sent me the video. And I was like, people do all these weird things. Like, it was super creepy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily, who was really Sam, was dealing with some real creeps. Like, there is this one guy who wouldn’t stop harassing her account. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>He used to call me. He used to call me on Instagram, he used to like, call me 10 times, like, ‘why aren’t you picking up? You shouldn’t disrespect someone like that,’ like, I muted him. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>When Sam ignored him, the guy sent a nude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>After like 10 missed calls, he just sent that pic. I was like, Why are you sending it? Like, are you thinking that seeing this, I will call you or something? As a male, I can say like, many males are like, super creepy and I hate such men. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And that was just the start of it. Emily Hart was a success, but Sam was starting to get uncomfortable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like my DMs are filled every day, I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then… Instagram flagged Emily’s account, and that was the beginning of the end. Today, we’re diving into the rest of Sam’s story, from the Instagram bans to the scammer accusations to what happened with his lifelong dream of moving to America. And we’ll take a look at some other AI grifts as we try to answer the big question. Is it fair to call Sam a scammer? Buckle up. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. Before we get into the other questions, let’s talk about the rest of Emily’s story. Unfortunately, her ending is not a happy one. That’s our first half: the death of Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At the peak of her popularity, Emily Hart was gaining about 2,000 followers a day. Sam was on top of the world. But then Instagram started picking up on some suspicious behavior in Emily’s DMs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So like initially, like Instagram, I used to message people. I didn’t do that. Instagram reads all the DMs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Not only does Instagram monitor DMs, but it also does not allow adult content. And it doesn’t allow users to advertise adult content Even mentioning OnlyFans can get you banned. Sex workers usually bury links to their paywalled explicit content within a sea of other links, three or four clicks deep. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t know that, I sent a link to my Fanvue personally in DM, and like Instagram flagged my account instantly, like within 5-10 minutes, my account got flagged, it got banned, like I cannot use it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Panicked, Sam got in touch with Meta and appealed the ban. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They asked for my personal ID and my mobile number, my email, all my personal information. And like my account got recovered the next day. And then it was flagged again, like two, five days after. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He wasn’t sure what triggered the second ban, but it could have been for a number of reasons. He didn’t disclose that the account was AI, which goes against Instagram’s policies. He avoided even mentioning Emily’s Fanvue, but Meta could have flagged her account anyway using data about Sam’s internet usage. That happens to human sex workers all the time. Sam appealed again and, again, managed to recover Emily’s account. But then, about a month later, on the night of Valentine’s Day…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> it was like, boom, it’s over, they deleted my account, they don’t even give me the reason. It was just written that you don’t follow our community guidelines, that’s why we are suspending your account. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But then Sam remembered one certain post. And if he hadn’t already racked up a history of bans, Meta may have let this one slide. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was the death by a thousand cuts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s Ej Dickson, who first reported the story for Wired. Well, the Instagram guidelines require that creators disclose whether or not their profiles are AI-generated, and he wasn’t kicked off for violating that. He was kicked off for basically leaning into MAGA hatred too much, which I kind of thought was funny in a really dark way. Like he posted something really racist.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>We’re not going to repeat what the post said, but here’s how Sam explained why he did it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I don’t hate African American people like, but it’s generally like, MAGA people don’t like them as much. MAGA people were like, super racist. Okay? So like I thought that like if I make an racially inappropriate joke for like, I thought that people would appreciate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He girlbossed too close to the sun, basically. And that’s what got him kicked off, not the fact that it was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s audience loved Sam’s posts about deporting immigrants and demonizing abortion. But this went too far for even them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Instagram is basically racism app. It’s like, filled with racism. And like, people appreciate it in comment section. Like people make jokes of it. But one thing that was super surprising for me is that like when I posted it, like even the MAGA people like, no one supported me, not like, even a single guy supported me. And people were like this is straight out racism. And people mass reported that reel and it got my Threads account banned. So it was surprising for me that people didn’t entertain that racism. It felt good. Like, at least people are not like, that racist. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam tried to appeal it, like he did with previous bans, but Emily Hart’s Instagram account was gone forever. It was particularly devastating because he had been chasing side hustles for months, and this was the one that finally paid off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I was super upset, like I tried many things, like 10 things, 15 things and finally there was a hope, like there is this thing that worked out for me. There is thing like, that I figured out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though. The big entrance exam for Indian medical specialty programs was just a few months away, so he had to lock in and study. And then, he had to navigate a different kind of internet fame. Ej’s wired story about Emily Hart was published shortly after the final Instagram ban. And it became even more viral than Emily herself. Ej expected some backlash from the MAGA crowd. After all, the headline of her story was literally “This scammer used an AI-generated MAGA girl to grift super dumb men.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>But a really interesting thing happened after the story came out where even MAGA accounts were reposting it being like, ‘Good for this guy!’ Like, applauding his efforts to scam, basically. There were some people who were saying like, incredibly racist things about brown people, but in the same breath were like, but honestly, good for this guy. If this is what these guys are capable of, like,more of them should come over here. That was a sentiment I saw more than once. And it’s a disgusting sentiment, right? It’s a despicable sentiment, but I was very surprised to see that even the people who were being duped by this guy were applauding the level of grift that it took to dupe them. I mean, that’s what they were doing. There were a couple of people who were mad, but for the most part, they were like, this guy? Good for him, you know, game-recognize-game. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam also loved Ej’s story. He said he sent it to all of his friends. And even though his name and identity were kept anonymous, for a brief moment, he was kind of a celebrity online. This story was everywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from an episode of The View ] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Joy Behar: So-called MAGA men, they were drooling over a social media personality named Emily Hart, a cute little blonde who would post pro-Trump content and even send bikini photos if people paid for it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from Fox and Friends] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Kurt ‘CyberGuy’ Knutsson: I mean, this is catfishing on steroids, period. And you can see why the guys fell for her. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from HOT 97 TV News] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: She is not real. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Wait, what? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is AI. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith:Oh, wow. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is A.I. Turns out this is a viral MAGA influencer and she was ran by a med student from India. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Oh, he’s so smart. So smart. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I read thousands of comments, and people were appreciating. Like, give this guy a green card. You know, give the guy a citizen. It’s an example of good Indian, we need them in the USA. And people were super appreciating like, that he’s just smart, MAGA are dumb. Like, it’s not his fault if people are dumb. It’s a super genius idea. I should have thought of that. It was a very positive reaction. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, he did have an issue with one part of the article. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>In the article headline, they called me a scammer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>To this day Sam insists that he never scammed anyone. He says it’s a racist assumption that all Indian people online are scammers. We’ll hear his case in a new tab. That’s for after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, after the break, what makes a scammer? Don’t go anywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: is Sam a scammer? After Ej’s story came out, people praised Sam as innovative and creative and a master of his craft. Even Trump supporters applauded his dedication to the hustle. Sam ate it up, but he was genuinely offended by the way everyone called him a scammer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t scam anyone. I disclosed people that they shouldn’t tip. I disclose people that they shouldn’t spend so much money on me. Like, didn’t have any bad intention. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>A scammer, according to Merriam-Webster, is someone who participates in a fraudulent scheme. Cambridge Dictionary- someone who makes money using illegal methods by tricking people. Wikipedia- someone defrauds a person or group after gaining their trust. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I just want to make some money. You can say it’s not ethical, but it’s not a scam, like I didn’t do anything, you can say, illegal. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam technically didn’t defraud anyone. While Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI generated, Sam did disclose it to subscribers on Fanvue, where he was actually making money. He said he had plenty of opportunities to scam Emily Hart subscribers. Multiple fans had offered to pay her thousands of dollars to meet in person, but Sam said he never took the money. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People were like, we will pay for your plane ticket and please just come to California. We will have a dinner. Let’s have a dinner together and all that. Like, I could have easily taken their money. Like, I would have easily sent them, you can say, Bitcoin or like some, you can say, crypto link, but like, I was like, super clear with that. Like, I will not do anything wrong. And I knew that like, I can’t meet them in real life. They will just waive their money and I didn’t want that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam felt that the money he earned selling Fanvue subscriptions and pay-per-view content was earned, even if it was through AI-generated softcore porn. He disclosed that the content was AI, and he was providing something in return for their money. But he wasn’t comfortable accepting direct tips from Emily’s subscribers. He even sent some tips back. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>From New Jersey and like he was tipping me a lot and I wondered like why he’s tipping so much. I asked him like ‘why are you tipping me so much?’ He was tipping so much in hopes that I will meet him because my model was based in New York City and it was close to New Jersey so he was like, if I tip her so much, maybe she will come to meet me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> Sam told the subscriber that Emily was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I returned all the tip money. Then I was like, if you want to cancel the subscription, it’s completely fine with me. He was like no, like he didn’t even take all of the tip back. Like he tipped me $10 and he was like that, it’s okay. And like I returned the rest of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was offended that he was being labeled a scammer,because in his eyes, if he had actually scammed people, he’d have a lot more money. He also said it feeds into some of the racist assumptions that many people online make about India. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There is a stereotype for Indian people, like, all the Indian people are scammers. Like, I didn’t want to do that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India dominates the IT industry. The English-speaking world’s major tech support hubs are based in India. But as this booming market grew, the cyber scam economy exploded too. Callers often pose as tech support agents from Amazon or fraud investigators from major banks and persuade gullible victims to hand over remote access to their devices and accounts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, people in India, they scam them out of thousands of dollars and I really feel bad. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s economic strain and rising unemployment rates are pushing more young people to work at cyber scam centers because no one else is hiring. And that has really affected Sam, especially when he tries to make friends online. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>That hurt the Indian image so much that even like, I meet people online, I can’t even tell them that I am Indian. They straight out hate me. Like, you are a scammer, you know all that racial comments, and I am like, you haven’t even talked with me, you don’t even know what kind of a person I am. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He specifically tried to adhere to his own moral code with Emily Hart, in part because he’s aware of the scammer reputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I absolutely hate that, like it ruins the image of my country and I don’t like it at all. So I am like that, I am doing this and I will do this as ethically as possible. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So yes, Sam did dupe conservative men into following Emily Hart’s Instagram account. And he did build a following using racist, xenophobic, and downright offensive content. But when it comes to the question of whether he’s a scammer, sure, he profited off of the MAGA fantasy of a woman that doesn’t exist, but there were lines he refused to cross. And if subscribers tried to tip him more than the $5 subscription fee, he’d remind them that Emily Hart wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The thing is, scamming is not a term in our legal system, unlike fraud and theft, which can be prosecuted. And Sam didn’t do either of those. So whether he’s a scammer is really a moral question. And we can’t really weigh in on that until we understand the other ways people are using AI to deceive and profit off of others. Which, of course, means opening a new tab: the AI Thirst Trap Griff. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>AI models took off for the general public in the early 2020s. And since then, the grifts have been booming. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think there’s a spectrum of this, of the AI influencer grift, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej has been reporting on this a lot for Wired, tracking all the new developments in the AI-influencer world. The industry is thriving. It seems like there’s a new synthetic personality going viral every day. They dominate streaming charts with their AI-generated music. They represent brands as AI-generated models. They crank out YouTube videos and TikToks and Reels faster than any human influencer can. And, like Emily Hart, they even sell AI-generated nudes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think we’re at a point where low effort is being rewarded and there’s a premium put on it versus hard work. And like, there are a lot of especially younger people who think that the mark of success is basically making as much money with as little work as possible. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And there’s one trend in the AI influencer space that really freaks Ej out. So Emily Hart is not necessarily based on a real human being. Sam generated her from scratch by prompting Gemini. You could argue that Gemini was trained using real people’s photos, and that there’s a chance that someone out there does look like her. But that’s a conversation for another deep dive. What actually concerns Ej is this growing trend of using AI to modify real women’s photos and videos. And selling them on adult content sites, entirely without their consent. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I did a story about these 19-year-old boys who had developed this side hustle of taking random girls’ photos from Instagram, like private citizens, people with 1,000, 2,000 followers, not models or anything like that, and using nudify apps and posting sexual content of them on sites like Fanvue. And they were literally making YouTube tutorials and teaching men how to do this and how to make these photos, like what types of girls’ photos they should feed into the model to train it. It was really, really dark. And I think that we are headed for a future where that’s gonna become more normalized than not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>YouTube is teeming with tutorials to get rich quick by using generative AI to make explicit content. Almost all of the tutorials are taught by men who are profiting off of AI content based on real women. Some people refer to this as digital pimping. Ej thinks that phrasing is actually too mild. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it’s digital exploitation. I think it is digital trafficking, essentially. These guys are really invested in creating a reality where women who do not consent to being sexualized at all can have anything they want done with their images. No matter how old they are, no matter where they work, what they do. These guys just use the internet as free reign to humiliate them, because that’s really what it’s about. It’s not about getting off. It’s about humiliation. It’s about the lack of consent is the point. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Then there’s this practice of using AI influencers as bait. Ej recently broke this big story about the gay dating app Goose. Goose was marketed as a wholesome social platform. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Basically positioning it as a competitor to Grindr, except it would be less casual sex and hookup focused and more focused on socializing and making friends and forming real human connections. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Goose deployed a small army of hot gay influencers to recruit other gay men. These influencers would follow gay guys and add them to their Close Friends story or slide into their DMs with a “hey, you seem cool.” And eventually, they’d send an invite code to Goose. All of these influencers were AI-generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That was a big part of their marketing strategy, is making these very believable looking hot guy accounts with like 300, 400, 500 followers who like, worked in very realistic jobs. Like, one of the guys said he worked for Strava, like, another one of guys said he worked for like, David Zwirner Gallery. And that’s really convincing. And I think it really messed with a lot of people’s perceptions of reality and their ability to discern what is AI and what isn’t. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej said she could understand why people fell for it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>In order to get on Goose, because it’s invite only at this point, and you obviously have to be a gay man to join it, I made my own AI-generated hot guy influencer account. I was trying to make it really convincing. So I was like, give him beards, give him tattoos, like, make him live in Crown Heights, make him be like, a record producer/engineer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more that I was like, generating these photos and generating this guy’s biography, I was like, oh my God, I’ve made the hottest man in the world. Like, I would absolutely have sex with this. Honestly, and this is a huge compliment to my husband. Like, he looked a lot like my husband, so even I, like, for a split second, was kind of deceived by the too-good-to-be-true element of AI, at least momentarily. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Compared to other examples Ej just talked about, was what Sam did really that bad? There’s a spectrum of AI thirst trap grifts. Ultimately, Sam did profit off of Emily Hart, but was he causing harm to anyone? That’s less clear. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And then on the other hand, you have those evil motherf*ckers who are posting YouTube tutorials to young men teaching them how to take some high school girls’ photo off of Instagram and run her through a nudify app and make money off that. And the technology is getting better every day. It’s just getting easier and easier and easier and easier to do. It took me five minutes to make my hot gay man thirst trap guy. For Goose, it took the guys who were posting those YouTube tutorials, they were saying it took them 10 minutes. I think six months ago, the question would have been is the juice worth the squeeze? And now, like, there is no squeeze, you know? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Well, the squeeze is no longer worth it for Sam. After Emily Hart’s account was banned for good, Sam tried to make another. But he found that, somehow, Meta banded him too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Even now my phone is blacklisted. If I use another number it will be blacklisted. So I cannot even create an Instagram account. Even if it’s not for all this like, Like, I created another Instagram account for personal use stuff and it deletes it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As lucrative as Emily Hart was, Sam’s kind of over the whole thing anyway. He doesn’t want to deal with the creeps, and he’s tired of pretending to be racist for engagement. And he’s got other stuff going on in his life. He’s about to graduate from medical school. His whole university career, he dreamed of moving to the U.S. It was going to be his ticket out of India’s economic crisis and caste system. But, this whole ordeal with Emily Hart combined with other factors, has him second-guessing his life plan. That’s a new tab: should I move to America? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sam had mapped out his entire career strategy when he started university, making sure to check all the boxes required to land a residency match in the U.S., which is already competitive, but even more so for international students. But he was determined. The United States Medical Licensing Exam is an incredibly rigorous process. It’s split into three parts over multiple years. Step one, which students take during their first years of medical school, is eight hours long. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I cleared it in my first attempt, like, you only get one chance and I cleared it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>According to his plan, he should be taking step two soon. But since clearing the first exam, he’s watched immigration to the U.S. Become more and more difficult under the Trump administration. And now he’s rethinking his plan. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, Donald Trump has made it so difficult to, even if you’re talented, they don’t want you. Even if you do everything right, there is no guarantee. He did like hundreds of policy changes, like, every day he wakes up, he do a policy change. It’s like, you know you can’t predict him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The Trump administration’s immigration policies have wreaked havoc on the medical training system, from implementing strict time limits on visas for trainees, to stalling visa renewals for doctors who are already practicing here. There’s also the $100,000 entry fee for H-1B visa holders, which a lot of rural hospitals just can’t afford. And amid the constant flux in the White House’s policies, ICE officers have targeted, detained, and deported immigrants, even if their visas are still valid. Sam has watched it all unfold while finishing school. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And one day, I was like, it’s enough, I give up, like, I don’t want to gamble with my future. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And, immigration policies aside, his interactions with Americans, as Emily Hart, have soured his opinion of the U.S. He did choose to pander to people who have extremely racist and xenophobic stances, and he did stoke these viewpoints with Emily’s content. But at the same time, it wasn’t lost on him that if these followers knew who he really was, he’d probably be the target of their vitriol too. He said that a lot of these interactions reinforced his beliefs about conservative America. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but you know, stereotype doesn’t write themselves, okay? Like, stereotype exists for a reason. I learned that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So making it in America, the land of opportunity and Grand Theft Auto, is no longer Sam’s goal. He said many of his classmates feel the same way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Because of this, many of the talented people are going to countries like Japan, Germany, like, good European countries, like,even UAE. People are saying, don’t go to the United States. And even after all this, you have to face racism on that. It’s not worth it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam considered trying to get into a specialty training program in other English-speaking countries, but he’s not sure of that either. The political climates in those countries aren’t the most welcoming right now. The UK has tightened its visa pathways and increased restrictions for international workers. And Australia recently placed Indian students in the high-risk visa category. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, nobody is willing to accept Indians, but the sentiment is very anti-immigration right now. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam said a lot of young people would actually want to stay in India if it weren’t for the caste system and tanking job market. He said that the reservation system, which was designed to uplift the most oppressed castes, leaves the middle class to compete for opportunities with the ultra-wealthy. But despite all his gripes with his home country and his lifelong dream of getting out, he is actually planning to stay for now. He scrapped his U.S. Immigration plans. Instead, he’s been studying for the big national entrance exam for India’s medical post-grad programs. He’s sitting for it at the end of the month. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It wasn’t worth it for Sam to maintain Emily Hart’s Fanvue without having an Instagram to direct traffic to it. But he does still need to make money. And since he’s studying six to eight hours a day on top of his clinical work, he doesn’t have time for a nine to five. A few weeks ago, Sam started working on what he calls a more ethical version of Emily Hart, helping brands create AI influencers to promote their products. He doubts it’ll be as financially rewarding as Emily Hart. It’s essentially a marketing gig, which he said was kind of boring. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Emily was another level of fun, it was like, you know, you get an adrenaline rush every day, you see like 2000 followers are adding up, there are people tipping on you, there are are people that are going crazy for you, or like people are copying you. It was a whole different level of, you can say, fun. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But even if he could get around the meta ban, Sam has zero interest in attempting to create another Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> I used to think that you can, you know, easily make good amount of money effortlessly. All this AI creator and stuff didn’t take a lot of effort. It was hardly 15 to 30 minutes a day of work. And actually, it made a good amount of money. But what I concluded is that like, you cannot make a good amount money consistently without putting in effort. That’s my takeaway. If it feels too good to be true, then it is too good to be true.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s it for this extra deep, deep dive into the saga of Emily Hart, and, more importantly, the story of the real guy who created her. Special thanks to Sam and Ej for sharing this with us. We have opened so many tabs for this series, but if you feel like you still need to open more, we’ll link to some further reading in the show notes. And as usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay. It’s finally time, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and it’s reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Lauren Yoon is our intern and was also the associate producer on this episode. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor-in-chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. This episode also includes clips from The View, Fox & Friends, and Hot 97. It also includes AI-generated clips of Emily Hart, courtesy of Sam. Thanks for listening! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, I’ve tried a lot of things like trading bots, like stock market and stuff. I got good success in that, but then I lost a lot of money, I lost $1,000 in stock market, then I quit it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men — Ej Dickson, Wired ",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do they help you learn about all the chronically online things you’re too scared to Google at work? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it. Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show. So this is actually the second part of our series on the saga of Emily Hart, an AI MAGA influencer, and Sam, the guy who created her. If you haven’t heard part one yet, check out last week’s episode. And just a heads up, this episode contains mentions of explicit sexual content. So listen with care. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do they help you learn about all the chronically online things you’re too scared to Google at work? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it. Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show. So this is actually the second part of our series on the saga of Emily Hart, an AI MAGA influencer, and Sam, the guy who created her. If you haven’t heard part one yet, check out last week’s episode. And just a heads up, this episode contains mentions of explicit sexual content. So listen with care. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We first met Sam in last week episode. He’s a 22 year old medical student from India, and he had been chasing side hustles in order to make extra cash while in school. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I needed some extra pocket money. I started first with YouTube shorts. I started making AI horror shorts, then Roblox, but like it didn’t work that way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I needed some extra pocket money. I started first with YouTube shorts. I started making AI horror shorts, then Roblox, but like it didn’t work that way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was by far his most lucrative venture. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Clip of Emily Hart] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Hey, handsome, in this private ward, there are no supervisors and no rules. Just me, you, and whatever happens when these scrubs finally come off. \u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Clip of Emily Hart] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Hey, handsome, in this private ward, there are no supervisors and no rules. Just me, you, and whatever happens when these scrubs finally come off. \u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She was the MAGA dream girl. And she was completely AI-generated. She rapidly gained a following thanks to her Trump-supporting thirst traps. Every time Sam posted images of her ice fishing, shooting rifles, drinking beer, complete with an American flag bikini and bright red MAGA hat, her fans went wild. In just a few weeks, Emily had 15,000 followers on Instagram, over 20 million views on Reels and a small army of subscribers on FanView. That’s a site kind of like OnlyFans. And these guys literally paid to DM her. Well, really, paid to DM Sam. They didn’t know it was him, but they also didn’t seem to care that Emily wasn’t real. Sam was making a couple thousand dollars a month, so he wasn’t quite rolling in it, but that’s really good money for a student in India. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She was the MAGA dream girl. And she was completely AI-generated. She rapidly gained a following thanks to her Trump-supporting thirst traps. Every time Sam posted images of her ice fishing, shooting rifles, drinking beer, complete with an American flag bikini and bright red MAGA hat, her fans went wild. In just a few weeks, Emily had 15,000 followers on Instagram, over 20 million views on Reels and a small army of subscribers on FanView. That’s a site kind of like OnlyFans. And these guys literally paid to DM her. Well, really, paid to DM Sam. They didn’t know it was him, but they also didn’t seem to care that Emily wasn’t real. Sam was making a couple thousand dollars a month, so he wasn’t quite rolling in it, but that’s really good money for a student in India. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Actually it was a bit strange. It was a bit creepy like other male is talking to me in like, that way. It felt weird. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Actually it was a bit strange. It was a bit creepy like other male is talking to me in like, that way. It felt weird. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was getting sick of it. It started with the unsolicited dick pics. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I’m like, what the hell is this guy doing? He sent me the video. And I was like, people do all these weird things. Like, it was super creepy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I’m like, what the hell is this guy doing? He sent me the video. And I was like, people do all these weird things. Like, it was super creepy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily, who was really Sam, was dealing with some real creeps. Like, there is this one guy who wouldn’t stop harassing her account. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>He used to call me. He used to call me on Instagram, he used to like, call me 10 times, like, ‘why aren’t you picking up? You shouldn’t disrespect someone like that,’ like, I muted him. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>After like 10 missed calls, he just sent that pic. I was like, Why are you sending it? Like, are you thinking that seeing this, I will call you or something? As a male, I can say like, many males are like, super creepy and I hate such men. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>After like 10 missed calls, he just sent that pic. I was like, Why are you sending it? Like, are you thinking that seeing this, I will call you or something? As a male, I can say like, many males are like, super creepy and I hate such men. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And that was just the start of it. Emily Hart was a success, but Sam was starting to get uncomfortable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like my DMs are filled every day, I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then… Instagram flagged Emily’s account, and that was the beginning of the end. Today, we’re diving into the rest of Sam’s story, from the Instagram bans to the scammer accusations to what happened with his lifelong dream of moving to America. And we’ll take a look at some other AI grifts as we try to answer the big question. Is it fair to call Sam a scammer? Buckle up. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then… Instagram flagged Emily’s account, and that was the beginning of the end. Today, we’re diving into the rest of Sam’s story, from the Instagram bans to the scammer accusations to what happened with his lifelong dream of moving to America. And we’ll take a look at some other AI grifts as we try to answer the big question. Is it fair to call Sam a scammer? Buckle up. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. Before we get into the other questions, let’s talk about the rest of Emily’s story. Unfortunately, her ending is not a happy one. That’s our first half: the death of Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So like initially, like Instagram, I used to message people. I didn’t do that. Instagram reads all the DMs. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So like initially, like Instagram, I used to message people. I didn’t do that. Instagram reads all the DMs. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Not only does Instagram monitor DMs, but it also does not allow adult content. And it doesn’t allow users to advertise adult content Even mentioning OnlyFans can get you banned. Sex workers usually bury links to their paywalled explicit content within a sea of other links, three or four clicks deep. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Not only does Instagram monitor DMs, but it also does not allow adult content. And it doesn’t allow users to advertise adult content Even mentioning OnlyFans can get you banned. Sex workers usually bury links to their paywalled explicit content within a sea of other links, three or four clicks deep. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t know that, I sent a link to my Fanvue personally in DM, and like Instagram flagged my account instantly, like within 5-10 minutes, my account got flagged, it got banned, like I cannot use it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t know that, I sent a link to my Fanvue personally in DM, and like Instagram flagged my account instantly, like within 5-10 minutes, my account got flagged, it got banned, like I cannot use it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Panicked, Sam got in touch with Meta and appealed the ban. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Panicked, Sam got in touch with Meta and appealed the ban. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They asked for my personal ID and my mobile number, my email, all my personal information. And like my account got recovered the next day. And then it was flagged again, like two, five days after. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They asked for my personal ID and my mobile number, my email, all my personal information. And like my account got recovered the next day. And then it was flagged again, like two, five days after. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He wasn’t sure what triggered the second ban, but it could have been for a number of reasons. He didn’t disclose that the account was AI, which goes against Instagram’s policies. He avoided even mentioning Emily’s Fanvue, but Meta could have flagged her account anyway using data about Sam’s internet usage. That happens to human sex workers all the time. Sam appealed again and, again, managed to recover Emily’s account. But then, about a month later, on the night of Valentine’s Day…\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He wasn’t sure what triggered the second ban, but it could have been for a number of reasons. He didn’t disclose that the account was AI, which goes against Instagram’s policies. He avoided even mentioning Emily’s Fanvue, but Meta could have flagged her account anyway using data about Sam’s internet usage. That happens to human sex workers all the time. Sam appealed again and, again, managed to recover Emily’s account. But then, about a month later, on the night of Valentine’s Day…\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> it was like, boom, it’s over, they deleted my account, they don’t even give me the reason. It was just written that you don’t follow our community guidelines, that’s why we are suspending your account. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> it was like, boom, it’s over, they deleted my account, they don’t even give me the reason. It was just written that you don’t follow our community guidelines, that’s why we are suspending your account. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But then Sam remembered one certain post. And if he hadn’t already racked up a history of bans, Meta may have let this one slide. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But then Sam remembered one certain post. And if he hadn’t already racked up a history of bans, Meta may have let this one slide. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was the death by a thousand cuts. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was the death by a thousand cuts. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s Ej Dickson, who first reported the story for Wired. Well, the Instagram guidelines require that creators disclose whether or not their profiles are AI-generated, and he wasn’t kicked off for violating that. He was kicked off for basically leaning into MAGA hatred too much, which I kind of thought was funny in a really dark way. Like he posted something really racist.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s Ej Dickson, who first reported the story for Wired. Well, the Instagram guidelines require that creators disclose whether or not their profiles are AI-generated, and he wasn’t kicked off for violating that. He was kicked off for basically leaning into MAGA hatred too much, which I kind of thought was funny in a really dark way. Like he posted something really racist.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>We’re not going to repeat what the post said, but here’s how Sam explained why he did it. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>We’re not going to repeat what the post said, but here’s how Sam explained why he did it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I don’t hate African American people like, but it’s generally like, MAGA people don’t like them as much. MAGA people were like, super racist. Okay? So like I thought that like if I make an racially inappropriate joke for like, I thought that people would appreciate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I don’t hate African American people like, but it’s generally like, MAGA people don’t like them as much. MAGA people were like, super racist. Okay? So like I thought that like if I make an racially inappropriate joke for like, I thought that people would appreciate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He girlbossed too close to the sun, basically. And that’s what got him kicked off, not the fact that it was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He girlbossed too close to the sun, basically. And that’s what got him kicked off, not the fact that it was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s audience loved Sam’s posts about deporting immigrants and demonizing abortion. But this went too far for even them. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s audience loved Sam’s posts about deporting immigrants and demonizing abortion. But this went too far for even them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Instagram is basically racism app. It’s like, filled with racism. And like, people appreciate it in comment section. Like people make jokes of it. But one thing that was super surprising for me is that like when I posted it, like even the MAGA people like, no one supported me, not like, even a single guy supported me. And people were like this is straight out racism. And people mass reported that reel and it got my Threads account banned. So it was surprising for me that people didn’t entertain that racism. It felt good. Like, at least people are not like, that racist. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Instagram is basically racism app. It’s like, filled with racism. And like, people appreciate it in comment section. Like people make jokes of it. But one thing that was super surprising for me is that like when I posted it, like even the MAGA people like, no one supported me, not like, even a single guy supported me. And people were like this is straight out racism. And people mass reported that reel and it got my Threads account banned. So it was surprising for me that people didn’t entertain that racism. It felt good. Like, at least people are not like, that racist. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam tried to appeal it, like he did with previous bans, but Emily Hart’s Instagram account was gone forever. It was particularly devastating because he had been chasing side hustles for months, and this was the one that finally paid off. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam tried to appeal it, like he did with previous bans, but Emily Hart’s Instagram account was gone forever. It was particularly devastating because he had been chasing side hustles for months, and this was the one that finally paid off. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I was super upset, like I tried many things, like 10 things, 15 things and finally there was a hope, like there is this thing that worked out for me. There is thing like, that I figured out. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I was super upset, like I tried many things, like 10 things, 15 things and finally there was a hope, like there is this thing that worked out for me. There is thing like, that I figured out. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though. The big entrance exam for Indian medical specialty programs was just a few months away, so he had to lock in and study. And then, he had to navigate a different kind of internet fame. Ej’s wired story about Emily Hart was published shortly after the final Instagram ban. And it became even more viral than Emily herself. Ej expected some backlash from the MAGA crowd. After all, the headline of her story was literally “This scammer used an AI-generated MAGA girl to grift super dumb men.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though. The big entrance exam for Indian medical specialty programs was just a few months away, so he had to lock in and study. And then, he had to navigate a different kind of internet fame. Ej’s wired story about Emily Hart was published shortly after the final Instagram ban. And it became even more viral than Emily herself. Ej expected some backlash from the MAGA crowd. After all, the headline of her story was literally “This scammer used an AI-generated MAGA girl to grift super dumb men.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>But a really interesting thing happened after the story came out where even MAGA accounts were reposting it being like, ‘Good for this guy!’ Like, applauding his efforts to scam, basically. There were some people who were saying like, incredibly racist things about brown people, but in the same breath were like, but honestly, good for this guy. If this is what these guys are capable of, like,more of them should come over here. That was a sentiment I saw more than once. And it’s a disgusting sentiment, right? It’s a despicable sentiment, but I was very surprised to see that even the people who were being duped by this guy were applauding the level of grift that it took to dupe them. I mean, that’s what they were doing. There were a couple of people who were mad, but for the most part, they were like, this guy? Good for him, you know, game-recognize-game. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>But a really interesting thing happened after the story came out where even MAGA accounts were reposting it being like, ‘Good for this guy!’ Like, applauding his efforts to scam, basically. There were some people who were saying like, incredibly racist things about brown people, but in the same breath were like, but honestly, good for this guy. If this is what these guys are capable of, like,more of them should come over here. That was a sentiment I saw more than once. And it’s a disgusting sentiment, right? It’s a despicable sentiment, but I was very surprised to see that even the people who were being duped by this guy were applauding the level of grift that it took to dupe them. I mean, that’s what they were doing. There were a couple of people who were mad, but for the most part, they were like, this guy? Good for him, you know, game-recognize-game. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam also loved Ej’s story. He said he sent it to all of his friends. And even though his name and identity were kept anonymous, for a brief moment, he was kind of a celebrity online. This story was everywhere. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam also loved Ej’s story. He said he sent it to all of his friends. And even though his name and identity were kept anonymous, for a brief moment, he was kind of a celebrity online. This story was everywhere. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from an episode of The View ] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Joy Behar: So-called MAGA men, they were drooling over a social media personality named Emily Hart, a cute little blonde who would post pro-Trump content and even send bikini photos if people paid for it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from an episode of The View ] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Joy Behar: So-called MAGA men, they were drooling over a social media personality named Emily Hart, a cute little blonde who would post pro-Trump content and even send bikini photos if people paid for it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from Fox and Friends] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Kurt ‘CyberGuy’ Knutsson: I mean, this is catfishing on steroids, period. And you can see why the guys fell for her. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from Fox and Friends] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Kurt ‘CyberGuy’ Knutsson: I mean, this is catfishing on steroids, period. And you can see why the guys fell for her. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from HOT 97 TV News] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: She is not real. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Wait, what? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is AI. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith:Oh, wow. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is A.I. Turns out this is a viral MAGA influencer and she was ran by a med student from India. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Oh, he’s so smart. So smart. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from HOT 97 TV News] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: She is not real. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Wait, what? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is AI. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith:Oh, wow. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is A.I. Turns out this is a viral MAGA influencer and she was ran by a med student from India. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Oh, he’s so smart. So smart. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I read thousands of comments, and people were appreciating. Like, give this guy a green card. You know, give the guy a citizen. It’s an example of good Indian, we need them in the USA. And people were super appreciating like, that he’s just smart, MAGA are dumb. Like, it’s not his fault if people are dumb. It’s a super genius idea. I should have thought of that. It was a very positive reaction. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I read thousands of comments, and people were appreciating. Like, give this guy a green card. You know, give the guy a citizen. It’s an example of good Indian, we need them in the USA. And people were super appreciating like, that he’s just smart, MAGA are dumb. Like, it’s not his fault if people are dumb. It’s a super genius idea. I should have thought of that. It was a very positive reaction. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, he did have an issue with one part of the article. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, he did have an issue with one part of the article. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>In the article headline, they called me a scammer. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>In the article headline, they called me a scammer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>To this day Sam insists that he never scammed anyone. He says it’s a racist assumption that all Indian people online are scammers. We’ll hear his case in a new tab. That’s for after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, after the break, what makes a scammer? Don’t go anywhere. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>To this day Sam insists that he never scammed anyone. He says it’s a racist assumption that all Indian people online are scammers. We’ll hear his case in a new tab. That’s for after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, after the break, what makes a scammer? Don’t go anywhere. \u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: is Sam a scammer? After Ej’s story came out, people praised Sam as innovative and creative and a master of his craft. Even Trump supporters applauded his dedication to the hustle. Sam ate it up, but he was genuinely offended by the way everyone called him a scammer. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: is Sam a scammer? After Ej’s story came out, people praised Sam as innovative and creative and a master of his craft. Even Trump supporters applauded his dedication to the hustle. Sam ate it up, but he was genuinely offended by the way everyone called him a scammer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t scam anyone. I disclosed people that they shouldn’t tip. I disclose people that they shouldn’t spend so much money on me. Like, didn’t have any bad intention. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t scam anyone. I disclosed people that they shouldn’t tip. I disclose people that they shouldn’t spend so much money on me. Like, didn’t have any bad intention. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>A scammer, according to Merriam-Webster, is someone who participates in a fraudulent scheme. Cambridge Dictionary- someone who makes money using illegal methods by tricking people. Wikipedia- someone defrauds a person or group after gaining their trust. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>A scammer, according to Merriam-Webster, is someone who participates in a fraudulent scheme. Cambridge Dictionary- someone who makes money using illegal methods by tricking people. Wikipedia- someone defrauds a person or group after gaining their trust. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I just want to make some money. You can say it’s not ethical, but it’s not a scam, like I didn’t do anything, you can say, illegal. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I just want to make some money. You can say it’s not ethical, but it’s not a scam, like I didn’t do anything, you can say, illegal. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam technically didn’t defraud anyone. While Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI generated, Sam did disclose it to subscribers on Fanvue, where he was actually making money. He said he had plenty of opportunities to scam Emily Hart subscribers. Multiple fans had offered to pay her thousands of dollars to meet in person, but Sam said he never took the money. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam technically didn’t defraud anyone. While Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI generated, Sam did disclose it to subscribers on Fanvue, where he was actually making money. He said he had plenty of opportunities to scam Emily Hart subscribers. Multiple fans had offered to pay her thousands of dollars to meet in person, but Sam said he never took the money. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People were like, we will pay for your plane ticket and please just come to California. We will have a dinner. Let’s have a dinner together and all that. Like, I could have easily taken their money. Like, I would have easily sent them, you can say, Bitcoin or like some, you can say, crypto link, but like, I was like, super clear with that. Like, I will not do anything wrong. And I knew that like, I can’t meet them in real life. They will just waive their money and I didn’t want that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People were like, we will pay for your plane ticket and please just come to California. We will have a dinner. Let’s have a dinner together and all that. Like, I could have easily taken their money. Like, I would have easily sent them, you can say, Bitcoin or like some, you can say, crypto link, but like, I was like, super clear with that. Like, I will not do anything wrong. And I knew that like, I can’t meet them in real life. They will just waive their money and I didn’t want that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam felt that the money he earned selling Fanvue subscriptions and pay-per-view content was earned, even if it was through AI-generated softcore porn. He disclosed that the content was AI, and he was providing something in return for their money. But he wasn’t comfortable accepting direct tips from Emily’s subscribers. He even sent some tips back. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam felt that the money he earned selling Fanvue subscriptions and pay-per-view content was earned, even if it was through AI-generated softcore porn. He disclosed that the content was AI, and he was providing something in return for their money. But he wasn’t comfortable accepting direct tips from Emily’s subscribers. He even sent some tips back. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>From New Jersey and like he was tipping me a lot and I wondered like why he’s tipping so much. I asked him like ‘why are you tipping me so much?’ He was tipping so much in hopes that I will meet him because my model was based in New York City and it was close to New Jersey so he was like, if I tip her so much, maybe she will come to meet me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>From New Jersey and like he was tipping me a lot and I wondered like why he’s tipping so much. I asked him like ‘why are you tipping me so much?’ He was tipping so much in hopes that I will meet him because my model was based in New York City and it was close to New Jersey so he was like, if I tip her so much, maybe she will come to meet me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> Sam told the subscriber that Emily was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> Sam told the subscriber that Emily was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I returned all the tip money. Then I was like, if you want to cancel the subscription, it’s completely fine with me. He was like no, like he didn’t even take all of the tip back. Like he tipped me $10 and he was like that, it’s okay. And like I returned the rest of it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I returned all the tip money. Then I was like, if you want to cancel the subscription, it’s completely fine with me. He was like no, like he didn’t even take all of the tip back. Like he tipped me $10 and he was like that, it’s okay. And like I returned the rest of it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was offended that he was being labeled a scammer,because in his eyes, if he had actually scammed people, he’d have a lot more money. He also said it feeds into some of the racist assumptions that many people online make about India. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was offended that he was being labeled a scammer,because in his eyes, if he had actually scammed people, he’d have a lot more money. He also said it feeds into some of the racist assumptions that many people online make about India. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There is a stereotype for Indian people, like, all the Indian people are scammers. Like, I didn’t want to do that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There is a stereotype for Indian people, like, all the Indian people are scammers. Like, I didn’t want to do that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India dominates the IT industry. The English-speaking world’s major tech support hubs are based in India. But as this booming market grew, the cyber scam economy exploded too. Callers often pose as tech support agents from Amazon or fraud investigators from major banks and persuade gullible victims to hand over remote access to their devices and accounts. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India dominates the IT industry. The English-speaking world’s major tech support hubs are based in India. But as this booming market grew, the cyber scam economy exploded too. Callers often pose as tech support agents from Amazon or fraud investigators from major banks and persuade gullible victims to hand over remote access to their devices and accounts. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, people in India, they scam them out of thousands of dollars and I really feel bad. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, people in India, they scam them out of thousands of dollars and I really feel bad. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s economic strain and rising unemployment rates are pushing more young people to work at cyber scam centers because no one else is hiring. And that has really affected Sam, especially when he tries to make friends online. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s economic strain and rising unemployment rates are pushing more young people to work at cyber scam centers because no one else is hiring. And that has really affected Sam, especially when he tries to make friends online. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>That hurt the Indian image so much that even like, I meet people online, I can’t even tell them that I am Indian. They straight out hate me. Like, you are a scammer, you know all that racial comments, and I am like, you haven’t even talked with me, you don’t even know what kind of a person I am. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>That hurt the Indian image so much that even like, I meet people online, I can’t even tell them that I am Indian. They straight out hate me. Like, you are a scammer, you know all that racial comments, and I am like, you haven’t even talked with me, you don’t even know what kind of a person I am. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He specifically tried to adhere to his own moral code with Emily Hart, in part because he’s aware of the scammer reputation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He specifically tried to adhere to his own moral code with Emily Hart, in part because he’s aware of the scammer reputation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I absolutely hate that, like it ruins the image of my country and I don’t like it at all. So I am like that, I am doing this and I will do this as ethically as possible. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I absolutely hate that, like it ruins the image of my country and I don’t like it at all. So I am like that, I am doing this and I will do this as ethically as possible. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So yes, Sam did dupe conservative men into following Emily Hart’s Instagram account. And he did build a following using racist, xenophobic, and downright offensive content. But when it comes to the question of whether he’s a scammer, sure, he profited off of the MAGA fantasy of a woman that doesn’t exist, but there were lines he refused to cross. And if subscribers tried to tip him more than the $5 subscription fee, he’d remind them that Emily Hart wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So yes, Sam did dupe conservative men into following Emily Hart’s Instagram account. And he did build a following using racist, xenophobic, and downright offensive content. But when it comes to the question of whether he’s a scammer, sure, he profited off of the MAGA fantasy of a woman that doesn’t exist, but there were lines he refused to cross. And if subscribers tried to tip him more than the $5 subscription fee, he’d remind them that Emily Hart wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The thing is, scamming is not a term in our legal system, unlike fraud and theft, which can be prosecuted. And Sam didn’t do either of those. So whether he’s a scammer is really a moral question. And we can’t really weigh in on that until we understand the other ways people are using AI to deceive and profit off of others. Which, of course, means opening a new tab: the AI Thirst Trap Griff. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The thing is, scamming is not a term in our legal system, unlike fraud and theft, which can be prosecuted. And Sam didn’t do either of those. So whether he’s a scammer is really a moral question. And we can’t really weigh in on that until we understand the other ways people are using AI to deceive and profit off of others. Which, of course, means opening a new tab: the AI Thirst Trap Griff. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>AI models took off for the general public in the early 2020s. And since then, the grifts have been booming. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>AI models took off for the general public in the early 2020s. And since then, the grifts have been booming. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think there’s a spectrum of this, of the AI influencer grift, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think there’s a spectrum of this, of the AI influencer grift, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej has been reporting on this a lot for Wired, tracking all the new developments in the AI-influencer world. The industry is thriving. It seems like there’s a new synthetic personality going viral every day. They dominate streaming charts with their AI-generated music. They represent brands as AI-generated models. They crank out YouTube videos and TikToks and Reels faster than any human influencer can. And, like Emily Hart, they even sell AI-generated nudes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej has been reporting on this a lot for Wired, tracking all the new developments in the AI-influencer world. The industry is thriving. It seems like there’s a new synthetic personality going viral every day. They dominate streaming charts with their AI-generated music. They represent brands as AI-generated models. They crank out YouTube videos and TikToks and Reels faster than any human influencer can. And, like Emily Hart, they even sell AI-generated nudes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think we’re at a point where low effort is being rewarded and there’s a premium put on it versus hard work. And like, there are a lot of especially younger people who think that the mark of success is basically making as much money with as little work as possible. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think we’re at a point where low effort is being rewarded and there’s a premium put on it versus hard work. And like, there are a lot of especially younger people who think that the mark of success is basically making as much money with as little work as possible. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And there’s one trend in the AI influencer space that really freaks Ej out. So Emily Hart is not necessarily based on a real human being. Sam generated her from scratch by prompting Gemini. You could argue that Gemini was trained using real people’s photos, and that there’s a chance that someone out there does look like her. But that’s a conversation for another deep dive. What actually concerns Ej is this growing trend of using AI to modify real women’s photos and videos. And selling them on adult content sites, entirely without their consent. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And there’s one trend in the AI influencer space that really freaks Ej out. So Emily Hart is not necessarily based on a real human being. Sam generated her from scratch by prompting Gemini. You could argue that Gemini was trained using real people’s photos, and that there’s a chance that someone out there does look like her. But that’s a conversation for another deep dive. What actually concerns Ej is this growing trend of using AI to modify real women’s photos and videos. And selling them on adult content sites, entirely without their consent. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I did a story about these 19-year-old boys who had developed this side hustle of taking random girls’ photos from Instagram, like private citizens, people with 1,000, 2,000 followers, not models or anything like that, and using nudify apps and posting sexual content of them on sites like Fanvue. And they were literally making YouTube tutorials and teaching men how to do this and how to make these photos, like what types of girls’ photos they should feed into the model to train it. It was really, really dark. And I think that we are headed for a future where that’s gonna become more normalized than not. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I did a story about these 19-year-old boys who had developed this side hustle of taking random girls’ photos from Instagram, like private citizens, people with 1,000, 2,000 followers, not models or anything like that, and using nudify apps and posting sexual content of them on sites like Fanvue. And they were literally making YouTube tutorials and teaching men how to do this and how to make these photos, like what types of girls’ photos they should feed into the model to train it. It was really, really dark. And I think that we are headed for a future where that’s gonna become more normalized than not. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>YouTube is teeming with tutorials to get rich quick by using generative AI to make explicit content. Almost all of the tutorials are taught by men who are profiting off of AI content based on real women. Some people refer to this as digital pimping. Ej thinks that phrasing is actually too mild. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>YouTube is teeming with tutorials to get rich quick by using generative AI to make explicit content. Almost all of the tutorials are taught by men who are profiting off of AI content based on real women. Some people refer to this as digital pimping. Ej thinks that phrasing is actually too mild. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it’s digital exploitation. I think it is digital trafficking, essentially. These guys are really invested in creating a reality where women who do not consent to being sexualized at all can have anything they want done with their images. No matter how old they are, no matter where they work, what they do. These guys just use the internet as free reign to humiliate them, because that’s really what it’s about. It’s not about getting off. It’s about humiliation. It’s about the lack of consent is the point. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it’s digital exploitation. I think it is digital trafficking, essentially. These guys are really invested in creating a reality where women who do not consent to being sexualized at all can have anything they want done with their images. No matter how old they are, no matter where they work, what they do. These guys just use the internet as free reign to humiliate them, because that’s really what it’s about. It’s not about getting off. It’s about humiliation. It’s about the lack of consent is the point. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Then there’s this practice of using AI influencers as bait. Ej recently broke this big story about the gay dating app Goose. Goose was marketed as a wholesome social platform. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Then there’s this practice of using AI influencers as bait. Ej recently broke this big story about the gay dating app Goose. Goose was marketed as a wholesome social platform. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Basically positioning it as a competitor to Grindr, except it would be less casual sex and hookup focused and more focused on socializing and making friends and forming real human connections. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Basically positioning it as a competitor to Grindr, except it would be less casual sex and hookup focused and more focused on socializing and making friends and forming real human connections. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Goose deployed a small army of hot gay influencers to recruit other gay men. These influencers would follow gay guys and add them to their Close Friends story or slide into their DMs with a “hey, you seem cool.” And eventually, they’d send an invite code to Goose. All of these influencers were AI-generated. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Goose deployed a small army of hot gay influencers to recruit other gay men. These influencers would follow gay guys and add them to their Close Friends story or slide into their DMs with a “hey, you seem cool.” And eventually, they’d send an invite code to Goose. All of these influencers were AI-generated. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That was a big part of their marketing strategy, is making these very believable looking hot guy accounts with like 300, 400, 500 followers who like, worked in very realistic jobs. Like, one of the guys said he worked for Strava, like, another one of guys said he worked for like, David Zwirner Gallery. And that’s really convincing. And I think it really messed with a lot of people’s perceptions of reality and their ability to discern what is AI and what isn’t. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That was a big part of their marketing strategy, is making these very believable looking hot guy accounts with like 300, 400, 500 followers who like, worked in very realistic jobs. Like, one of the guys said he worked for Strava, like, another one of guys said he worked for like, David Zwirner Gallery. And that’s really convincing. And I think it really messed with a lot of people’s perceptions of reality and their ability to discern what is AI and what isn’t. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej said she could understand why people fell for it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej said she could understand why people fell for it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>In order to get on Goose, because it’s invite only at this point, and you obviously have to be a gay man to join it, I made my own AI-generated hot guy influencer account. I was trying to make it really convincing. So I was like, give him beards, give him tattoos, like, make him live in Crown Heights, make him be like, a record producer/engineer. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>In order to get on Goose, because it’s invite only at this point, and you obviously have to be a gay man to join it, I made my own AI-generated hot guy influencer account. I was trying to make it really convincing. So I was like, give him beards, give him tattoos, like, make him live in Crown Heights, make him be like, a record producer/engineer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the more that I was like, generating these photos and generating this guy’s biography, I was like, oh my God, I’ve made the hottest man in the world. Like, I would absolutely have sex with this. Honestly, and this is a huge compliment to my husband. Like, he looked a lot like my husband, so even I, like, for a split second, was kind of deceived by the too-good-to-be-true element of AI, at least momentarily. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the more that I was like, generating these photos and generating this guy’s biography, I was like, oh my God, I’ve made the hottest man in the world. Like, I would absolutely have sex with this. Honestly, and this is a huge compliment to my husband. Like, he looked a lot like my husband, so even I, like, for a split second, was kind of deceived by the too-good-to-be-true element of AI, at least momentarily. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Compared to other examples Ej just talked about, was what Sam did really that bad? There’s a spectrum of AI thirst trap grifts. Ultimately, Sam did profit off of Emily Hart, but was he causing harm to anyone? That’s less clear. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Compared to other examples Ej just talked about, was what Sam did really that bad? There’s a spectrum of AI thirst trap grifts. Ultimately, Sam did profit off of Emily Hart, but was he causing harm to anyone? That’s less clear. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And then on the other hand, you have those evil motherf*ckers who are posting YouTube tutorials to young men teaching them how to take some high school girls’ photo off of Instagram and run her through a nudify app and make money off that. And the technology is getting better every day. It’s just getting easier and easier and easier and easier to do. It took me five minutes to make my hot gay man thirst trap guy. For Goose, it took the guys who were posting those YouTube tutorials, they were saying it took them 10 minutes. I think six months ago, the question would have been is the juice worth the squeeze? And now, like, there is no squeeze, you know? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Well, the squeeze is no longer worth it for Sam. After Emily Hart’s account was banned for good, Sam tried to make another. But he found that, somehow, Meta banded him too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Well, the squeeze is no longer worth it for Sam. After Emily Hart’s account was banned for good, Sam tried to make another. But he found that, somehow, Meta banded him too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Even now my phone is blacklisted. If I use another number it will be blacklisted. So I cannot even create an Instagram account. Even if it’s not for all this like, Like, I created another Instagram account for personal use stuff and it deletes it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Even now my phone is blacklisted. If I use another number it will be blacklisted. So I cannot even create an Instagram account. Even if it’s not for all this like, Like, I created another Instagram account for personal use stuff and it deletes it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As lucrative as Emily Hart was, Sam’s kind of over the whole thing anyway. He doesn’t want to deal with the creeps, and he’s tired of pretending to be racist for engagement. And he’s got other stuff going on in his life. He’s about to graduate from medical school. His whole university career, he dreamed of moving to the U.S. It was going to be his ticket out of India’s economic crisis and caste system. But, this whole ordeal with Emily Hart combined with other factors, has him second-guessing his life plan. That’s a new tab: should I move to America? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As lucrative as Emily Hart was, Sam’s kind of over the whole thing anyway. He doesn’t want to deal with the creeps, and he’s tired of pretending to be racist for engagement. And he’s got other stuff going on in his life. He’s about to graduate from medical school. His whole university career, he dreamed of moving to the U.S. It was going to be his ticket out of India’s economic crisis and caste system. But, this whole ordeal with Emily Hart combined with other factors, has him second-guessing his life plan. That’s a new tab: should I move to America? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sam had mapped out his entire career strategy when he started university, making sure to check all the boxes required to land a residency match in the U.S., which is already competitive, but even more so for international students. But he was determined. The United States Medical Licensing Exam is an incredibly rigorous process. It’s split into three parts over multiple years. Step one, which students take during their first years of medical school, is eight hours long. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sam had mapped out his entire career strategy when he started university, making sure to check all the boxes required to land a residency match in the U.S., which is already competitive, but even more so for international students. But he was determined. The United States Medical Licensing Exam is an incredibly rigorous process. It’s split into three parts over multiple years. Step one, which students take during their first years of medical school, is eight hours long. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I cleared it in my first attempt, like, you only get one chance and I cleared it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>According to his plan, he should be taking step two soon. But since clearing the first exam, he’s watched immigration to the U.S. Become more and more difficult under the Trump administration. And now he’s rethinking his plan. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>According to his plan, he should be taking step two soon. But since clearing the first exam, he’s watched immigration to the U.S. Become more and more difficult under the Trump administration. And now he’s rethinking his plan. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, Donald Trump has made it so difficult to, even if you’re talented, they don’t want you. Even if you do everything right, there is no guarantee. He did like hundreds of policy changes, like, every day he wakes up, he do a policy change. It’s like, you know you can’t predict him.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, Donald Trump has made it so difficult to, even if you’re talented, they don’t want you. Even if you do everything right, there is no guarantee. He did like hundreds of policy changes, like, every day he wakes up, he do a policy change. It’s like, you know you can’t predict him.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The Trump administration’s immigration policies have wreaked havoc on the medical training system, from implementing strict time limits on visas for trainees, to stalling visa renewals for doctors who are already practicing here. There’s also the $100,000 entry fee for H-1B visa holders, which a lot of rural hospitals just can’t afford. And amid the constant flux in the White House’s policies, ICE officers have targeted, detained, and deported immigrants, even if their visas are still valid. Sam has watched it all unfold while finishing school. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The Trump administration’s immigration policies have wreaked havoc on the medical training system, from implementing strict time limits on visas for trainees, to stalling visa renewals for doctors who are already practicing here. There’s also the $100,000 entry fee for H-1B visa holders, which a lot of rural hospitals just can’t afford. And amid the constant flux in the White House’s policies, ICE officers have targeted, detained, and deported immigrants, even if their visas are still valid. Sam has watched it all unfold while finishing school. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And one day, I was like, it’s enough, I give up, like, I don’t want to gamble with my future. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And, immigration policies aside, his interactions with Americans, as Emily Hart, have soured his opinion of the U.S. He did choose to pander to people who have extremely racist and xenophobic stances, and he did stoke these viewpoints with Emily’s content. But at the same time, it wasn’t lost on him that if these followers knew who he really was, he’d probably be the target of their vitriol too. He said that a lot of these interactions reinforced his beliefs about conservative America. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And, immigration policies aside, his interactions with Americans, as Emily Hart, have soured his opinion of the U.S. He did choose to pander to people who have extremely racist and xenophobic stances, and he did stoke these viewpoints with Emily’s content. But at the same time, it wasn’t lost on him that if these followers knew who he really was, he’d probably be the target of their vitriol too. He said that a lot of these interactions reinforced his beliefs about conservative America. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but you know, stereotype doesn’t write themselves, okay? Like, stereotype exists for a reason. I learned that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but you know, stereotype doesn’t write themselves, okay? Like, stereotype exists for a reason. I learned that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So making it in America, the land of opportunity and Grand Theft Auto, is no longer Sam’s goal. He said many of his classmates feel the same way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So making it in America, the land of opportunity and Grand Theft Auto, is no longer Sam’s goal. He said many of his classmates feel the same way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Because of this, many of the talented people are going to countries like Japan, Germany, like, good European countries, like,even UAE. People are saying, don’t go to the United States. And even after all this, you have to face racism on that. It’s not worth it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Because of this, many of the talented people are going to countries like Japan, Germany, like, good European countries, like,even UAE. People are saying, don’t go to the United States. And even after all this, you have to face racism on that. It’s not worth it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam considered trying to get into a specialty training program in other English-speaking countries, but he’s not sure of that either. The political climates in those countries aren’t the most welcoming right now. The UK has tightened its visa pathways and increased restrictions for international workers. And Australia recently placed Indian students in the high-risk visa category. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam considered trying to get into a specialty training program in other English-speaking countries, but he’s not sure of that either. The political climates in those countries aren’t the most welcoming right now. The UK has tightened its visa pathways and increased restrictions for international workers. And Australia recently placed Indian students in the high-risk visa category. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, nobody is willing to accept Indians, but the sentiment is very anti-immigration right now. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam said a lot of young people would actually want to stay in India if it weren’t for the caste system and tanking job market. He said that the reservation system, which was designed to uplift the most oppressed castes, leaves the middle class to compete for opportunities with the ultra-wealthy. But despite all his gripes with his home country and his lifelong dream of getting out, he is actually planning to stay for now. He scrapped his U.S. Immigration plans. Instead, he’s been studying for the big national entrance exam for India’s medical post-grad programs. He’s sitting for it at the end of the month. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It wasn’t worth it for Sam to maintain Emily Hart’s Fanvue without having an Instagram to direct traffic to it. But he does still need to make money. And since he’s studying six to eight hours a day on top of his clinical work, he doesn’t have time for a nine to five. A few weeks ago, Sam started working on what he calls a more ethical version of Emily Hart, helping brands create AI influencers to promote their products. He doubts it’ll be as financially rewarding as Emily Hart. It’s essentially a marketing gig, which he said was kind of boring. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Emily was another level of fun, it was like, you know, you get an adrenaline rush every day, you see like 2000 followers are adding up, there are people tipping on you, there are are people that are going crazy for you, or like people are copying you. It was a whole different level of, you can say, fun. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Emily was another level of fun, it was like, you know, you get an adrenaline rush every day, you see like 2000 followers are adding up, there are people tipping on you, there are are people that are going crazy for you, or like people are copying you. It was a whole different level of, you can say, fun. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But even if he could get around the meta ban, Sam has zero interest in attempting to create another Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> I used to think that you can, you know, easily make good amount of money effortlessly. All this AI creator and stuff didn’t take a lot of effort. It was hardly 15 to 30 minutes a day of work. And actually, it made a good amount of money. But what I concluded is that like, you cannot make a good amount money consistently without putting in effort. That’s my takeaway. If it feels too good to be true, then it is too good to be true.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s it for this extra deep, deep dive into the saga of Emily Hart, and, more importantly, the story of the real guy who created her. Special thanks to Sam and Ej for sharing this with us. We have opened so many tabs for this series, but if you feel like you still need to open more, we’ll link to some further reading in the show notes. And as usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay. It’s finally time, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s it for this extra deep, deep dive into the saga of Emily Hart, and, more importantly, the story of the real guy who created her. Special thanks to Sam and Ej for sharing this with us. We have opened so many tabs for this series, but if you feel like you still need to open more, we’ll link to some further reading in the show notes. And as usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay. It’s finally time, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and it’s reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Lauren Yoon is our intern and was also the associate producer on this episode. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor-in-chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. This episode also includes clips from The View, Fox & Friends, and Hot 97. It also includes AI-generated clips of Emily Hart, courtesy of Sam. Thanks for listening! \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, I’ve tried a lot of things like trading bots, like stock market and stuff. I got good success in that, but then I lost a lot of money, I lost $1,000 in stock market, then I quit it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The downfall of a MAGA dream girl and the rise of an industry built around generating fake influencers.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Emily Hart, the bikini-wearing right-wing AI influencer, had captured the hearts, minds and more of MAGA men online. But her creator, Sam, had grown sick of the creepy messages and unsolicited explicit photos he’d received from Emily’s adoring fans. And he was about to be outed as a “scammer.” In this follow-up to last week’s episode, we dig into the downfall of the MAGA dream girl, the explosion of AI “thirst” grifts and why Sam says he shouldn’t be labeled as a “scammer” at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2485498705\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/author/ej-dickson/\">Ej Dickson\u003c/a>, senior culture writer at \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>“Sam,” creator of AI MAGA Influencer Emily Hart\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/\">This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men \u003c/a>— Ej Dickson, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/goose-a-new-gay-dating-app-appears-to-be-a-psyop/\">Goose, a New Gay Dating App, Appears to Be a Psyop\u003c/a> — Ej Dickson, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://inkstickmedia.com/how-indias-cyber-scam-industry-causes-global-havoc/\">How India’s Cyber Scam Industry Causes Global Havoc\u003c/a> — Hanan Zaffar, \u003cem>Inkstick\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/ai-pimping-industry-deepfakes-instagram/\">Inside the Booming ‘AI Pimping’ Industry\u003c/a> — Jason Koebler and Emanuel Maiberg, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/health-industry/hhs-exchange-visitor-program-visa-waiver-j1-h1b-delays-foreign-doctors-deadline/\">Delays in Visa Program Threaten Placement of Hundreds of Doctors in Underserved Areas\u003c/a> — Arielle Zionts, \u003cem>KFF Health News \u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/06/11/white-house-wants-more-doctors-but-its-immigration-policies-block-them/\">White House Wants More Doctors But Its Immigration Policies Block Them\u003c/a> — Stuart Anderson, \u003cem>Forbes\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/foreign-medical-residents-fill-critical-positions-at-u-s-hospitals-but-many-now-face-visa-issues\">Foreign medical residents fill critical positions at U.S. hospitals, but many now face visa issues\u003c/a> — Adithi Ramakrishnan and Devi Shastri, \u003cem>PBS News\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/indians-lead-uk-exit-wave-as-britain-s-migration-crackdown-begins-to-bite-126052200275_1.html\">Indians lead UK exit wave as Britain’s migration crackdown begins to bite | Immigration News\u003c/a> — Sunainaa Chadha, \u003cem>Business Standard\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Follow us on \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Instagram\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">TikTok\u003c/a>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do they help you learn about all the chronically online things you’re too scared to Google at work? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it. Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show. So this is actually the second part of our series on the saga of Emily Hart, an AI MAGA influencer, and Sam, the guy who created her. If you haven’t heard part one yet, check out last week’s episode. And just a heads up, this episode contains mentions of explicit sexual content. So listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We first met Sam in last week episode. He’s a 22 year old medical student from India, and he had been chasing side hustles in order to make extra cash while in school. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I needed some extra pocket money. I started first with YouTube shorts. I started making AI horror shorts, then Roblox, but like it didn’t work that way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was by far his most lucrative venture. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Clip of Emily Hart] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Hey, handsome, in this private ward, there are no supervisors and no rules. Just me, you, and whatever happens when these scrubs finally come off. \u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She was the MAGA dream girl. And she was completely AI-generated. She rapidly gained a following thanks to her Trump-supporting thirst traps. Every time Sam posted images of her ice fishing, shooting rifles, drinking beer, complete with an American flag bikini and bright red MAGA hat, her fans went wild. In just a few weeks, Emily had 15,000 followers on Instagram, over 20 million views on Reels and a small army of subscribers on FanView. That’s a site kind of like OnlyFans. And these guys literally paid to DM her. Well, really, paid to DM Sam. They didn’t know it was him, but they also didn’t seem to care that Emily wasn’t real. Sam was making a couple thousand dollars a month, so he wasn’t quite rolling in it, but that’s really good money for a student in India. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Initially, I enjoyed it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>What made it at less enjoyable for you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Actually it was a bit strange. It was a bit creepy like other male is talking to me in like, that way. It felt weird. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was getting sick of it. It started with the unsolicited dick pics. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then the unsolicited cum tributes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I’m like, what the hell is this guy doing? He sent me the video. And I was like, people do all these weird things. Like, it was super creepy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily, who was really Sam, was dealing with some real creeps. Like, there is this one guy who wouldn’t stop harassing her account. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>He used to call me. He used to call me on Instagram, he used to like, call me 10 times, like, ‘why aren’t you picking up? You shouldn’t disrespect someone like that,’ like, I muted him. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>When Sam ignored him, the guy sent a nude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>After like 10 missed calls, he just sent that pic. I was like, Why are you sending it? Like, are you thinking that seeing this, I will call you or something? As a male, I can say like, many males are like, super creepy and I hate such men. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And that was just the start of it. Emily Hart was a success, but Sam was starting to get uncomfortable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like my DMs are filled every day, I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then… Instagram flagged Emily’s account, and that was the beginning of the end. Today, we’re diving into the rest of Sam’s story, from the Instagram bans to the scammer accusations to what happened with his lifelong dream of moving to America. And we’ll take a look at some other AI grifts as we try to answer the big question. Is it fair to call Sam a scammer? Buckle up. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. Before we get into the other questions, let’s talk about the rest of Emily’s story. Unfortunately, her ending is not a happy one. That’s our first half: the death of Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At the peak of her popularity, Emily Hart was gaining about 2,000 followers a day. Sam was on top of the world. But then Instagram started picking up on some suspicious behavior in Emily’s DMs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So like initially, like Instagram, I used to message people. I didn’t do that. Instagram reads all the DMs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Not only does Instagram monitor DMs, but it also does not allow adult content. And it doesn’t allow users to advertise adult content Even mentioning OnlyFans can get you banned. Sex workers usually bury links to their paywalled explicit content within a sea of other links, three or four clicks deep. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t know that, I sent a link to my Fanvue personally in DM, and like Instagram flagged my account instantly, like within 5-10 minutes, my account got flagged, it got banned, like I cannot use it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Panicked, Sam got in touch with Meta and appealed the ban. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They asked for my personal ID and my mobile number, my email, all my personal information. And like my account got recovered the next day. And then it was flagged again, like two, five days after. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He wasn’t sure what triggered the second ban, but it could have been for a number of reasons. He didn’t disclose that the account was AI, which goes against Instagram’s policies. He avoided even mentioning Emily’s Fanvue, but Meta could have flagged her account anyway using data about Sam’s internet usage. That happens to human sex workers all the time. Sam appealed again and, again, managed to recover Emily’s account. But then, about a month later, on the night of Valentine’s Day…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> it was like, boom, it’s over, they deleted my account, they don’t even give me the reason. It was just written that you don’t follow our community guidelines, that’s why we are suspending your account. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But then Sam remembered one certain post. And if he hadn’t already racked up a history of bans, Meta may have let this one slide. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was the death by a thousand cuts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s Ej Dickson, who first reported the story for Wired. Well, the Instagram guidelines require that creators disclose whether or not their profiles are AI-generated, and he wasn’t kicked off for violating that. He was kicked off for basically leaning into MAGA hatred too much, which I kind of thought was funny in a really dark way. Like he posted something really racist.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>We’re not going to repeat what the post said, but here’s how Sam explained why he did it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I don’t hate African American people like, but it’s generally like, MAGA people don’t like them as much. MAGA people were like, super racist. Okay? So like I thought that like if I make an racially inappropriate joke for like, I thought that people would appreciate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He girlbossed too close to the sun, basically. And that’s what got him kicked off, not the fact that it was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s audience loved Sam’s posts about deporting immigrants and demonizing abortion. But this went too far for even them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Instagram is basically racism app. It’s like, filled with racism. And like, people appreciate it in comment section. Like people make jokes of it. But one thing that was super surprising for me is that like when I posted it, like even the MAGA people like, no one supported me, not like, even a single guy supported me. And people were like this is straight out racism. And people mass reported that reel and it got my Threads account banned. So it was surprising for me that people didn’t entertain that racism. It felt good. Like, at least people are not like, that racist. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam tried to appeal it, like he did with previous bans, but Emily Hart’s Instagram account was gone forever. It was particularly devastating because he had been chasing side hustles for months, and this was the one that finally paid off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I was super upset, like I tried many things, like 10 things, 15 things and finally there was a hope, like there is this thing that worked out for me. There is thing like, that I figured out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though. The big entrance exam for Indian medical specialty programs was just a few months away, so he had to lock in and study. And then, he had to navigate a different kind of internet fame. Ej’s wired story about Emily Hart was published shortly after the final Instagram ban. And it became even more viral than Emily herself. Ej expected some backlash from the MAGA crowd. After all, the headline of her story was literally “This scammer used an AI-generated MAGA girl to grift super dumb men.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>But a really interesting thing happened after the story came out where even MAGA accounts were reposting it being like, ‘Good for this guy!’ Like, applauding his efforts to scam, basically. There were some people who were saying like, incredibly racist things about brown people, but in the same breath were like, but honestly, good for this guy. If this is what these guys are capable of, like,more of them should come over here. That was a sentiment I saw more than once. And it’s a disgusting sentiment, right? It’s a despicable sentiment, but I was very surprised to see that even the people who were being duped by this guy were applauding the level of grift that it took to dupe them. I mean, that’s what they were doing. There were a couple of people who were mad, but for the most part, they were like, this guy? Good for him, you know, game-recognize-game. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam also loved Ej’s story. He said he sent it to all of his friends. And even though his name and identity were kept anonymous, for a brief moment, he was kind of a celebrity online. This story was everywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from an episode of The View ] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Joy Behar: So-called MAGA men, they were drooling over a social media personality named Emily Hart, a cute little blonde who would post pro-Trump content and even send bikini photos if people paid for it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from Fox and Friends] \u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003cem>Kurt ‘CyberGuy’ Knutsson: I mean, this is catfishing on steroids, period. And you can see why the guys fell for her. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Audio from HOT 97 TV News] \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: She is not real. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Wait, what? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is AI. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith:Oh, wow. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Lana Harris: That is A.I. Turns out this is a viral MAGA influencer and she was ran by a med student from India. \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Million: What? \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Ronndell Smith: Oh, he’s so smart. So smart. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, I read thousands of comments, and people were appreciating. Like, give this guy a green card. You know, give the guy a citizen. It’s an example of good Indian, we need them in the USA. And people were super appreciating like, that he’s just smart, MAGA are dumb. Like, it’s not his fault if people are dumb. It’s a super genius idea. I should have thought of that. It was a very positive reaction. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, he did have an issue with one part of the article. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>In the article headline, they called me a scammer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>To this day Sam insists that he never scammed anyone. He says it’s a racist assumption that all Indian people online are scammers. We’ll hear his case in a new tab. That’s for after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, after the break, what makes a scammer? Don’t go anywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: is Sam a scammer? After Ej’s story came out, people praised Sam as innovative and creative and a master of his craft. Even Trump supporters applauded his dedication to the hustle. Sam ate it up, but he was genuinely offended by the way everyone called him a scammer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I didn’t scam anyone. I disclosed people that they shouldn’t tip. I disclose people that they shouldn’t spend so much money on me. Like, didn’t have any bad intention. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>A scammer, according to Merriam-Webster, is someone who participates in a fraudulent scheme. Cambridge Dictionary- someone who makes money using illegal methods by tricking people. Wikipedia- someone defrauds a person or group after gaining their trust. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I just want to make some money. You can say it’s not ethical, but it’s not a scam, like I didn’t do anything, you can say, illegal. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam technically didn’t defraud anyone. While Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI generated, Sam did disclose it to subscribers on Fanvue, where he was actually making money. He said he had plenty of opportunities to scam Emily Hart subscribers. Multiple fans had offered to pay her thousands of dollars to meet in person, but Sam said he never took the money. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People were like, we will pay for your plane ticket and please just come to California. We will have a dinner. Let’s have a dinner together and all that. Like, I could have easily taken their money. Like, I would have easily sent them, you can say, Bitcoin or like some, you can say, crypto link, but like, I was like, super clear with that. Like, I will not do anything wrong. And I knew that like, I can’t meet them in real life. They will just waive their money and I didn’t want that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam felt that the money he earned selling Fanvue subscriptions and pay-per-view content was earned, even if it was through AI-generated softcore porn. He disclosed that the content was AI, and he was providing something in return for their money. But he wasn’t comfortable accepting direct tips from Emily’s subscribers. He even sent some tips back. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>From New Jersey and like he was tipping me a lot and I wondered like why he’s tipping so much. I asked him like ‘why are you tipping me so much?’ He was tipping so much in hopes that I will meet him because my model was based in New York City and it was close to New Jersey so he was like, if I tip her so much, maybe she will come to meet me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> Sam told the subscriber that Emily was AI generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I returned all the tip money. Then I was like, if you want to cancel the subscription, it’s completely fine with me. He was like no, like he didn’t even take all of the tip back. Like he tipped me $10 and he was like that, it’s okay. And like I returned the rest of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was offended that he was being labeled a scammer,because in his eyes, if he had actually scammed people, he’d have a lot more money. He also said it feeds into some of the racist assumptions that many people online make about India. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There is a stereotype for Indian people, like, all the Indian people are scammers. Like, I didn’t want to do that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India dominates the IT industry. The English-speaking world’s major tech support hubs are based in India. But as this booming market grew, the cyber scam economy exploded too. Callers often pose as tech support agents from Amazon or fraud investigators from major banks and persuade gullible victims to hand over remote access to their devices and accounts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, people in India, they scam them out of thousands of dollars and I really feel bad. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s economic strain and rising unemployment rates are pushing more young people to work at cyber scam centers because no one else is hiring. And that has really affected Sam, especially when he tries to make friends online. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>That hurt the Indian image so much that even like, I meet people online, I can’t even tell them that I am Indian. They straight out hate me. Like, you are a scammer, you know all that racial comments, and I am like, you haven’t even talked with me, you don’t even know what kind of a person I am. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He specifically tried to adhere to his own moral code with Emily Hart, in part because he’s aware of the scammer reputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And I absolutely hate that, like it ruins the image of my country and I don’t like it at all. So I am like that, I am doing this and I will do this as ethically as possible. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So yes, Sam did dupe conservative men into following Emily Hart’s Instagram account. And he did build a following using racist, xenophobic, and downright offensive content. But when it comes to the question of whether he’s a scammer, sure, he profited off of the MAGA fantasy of a woman that doesn’t exist, but there were lines he refused to cross. And if subscribers tried to tip him more than the $5 subscription fee, he’d remind them that Emily Hart wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The thing is, scamming is not a term in our legal system, unlike fraud and theft, which can be prosecuted. And Sam didn’t do either of those. So whether he’s a scammer is really a moral question. And we can’t really weigh in on that until we understand the other ways people are using AI to deceive and profit off of others. Which, of course, means opening a new tab: the AI Thirst Trap Griff. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>AI models took off for the general public in the early 2020s. And since then, the grifts have been booming. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think there’s a spectrum of this, of the AI influencer grift, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej has been reporting on this a lot for Wired, tracking all the new developments in the AI-influencer world. The industry is thriving. It seems like there’s a new synthetic personality going viral every day. They dominate streaming charts with their AI-generated music. They represent brands as AI-generated models. They crank out YouTube videos and TikToks and Reels faster than any human influencer can. And, like Emily Hart, they even sell AI-generated nudes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think we’re at a point where low effort is being rewarded and there’s a premium put on it versus hard work. And like, there are a lot of especially younger people who think that the mark of success is basically making as much money with as little work as possible. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And there’s one trend in the AI influencer space that really freaks Ej out. So Emily Hart is not necessarily based on a real human being. Sam generated her from scratch by prompting Gemini. You could argue that Gemini was trained using real people’s photos, and that there’s a chance that someone out there does look like her. But that’s a conversation for another deep dive. What actually concerns Ej is this growing trend of using AI to modify real women’s photos and videos. And selling them on adult content sites, entirely without their consent. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I did a story about these 19-year-old boys who had developed this side hustle of taking random girls’ photos from Instagram, like private citizens, people with 1,000, 2,000 followers, not models or anything like that, and using nudify apps and posting sexual content of them on sites like Fanvue. And they were literally making YouTube tutorials and teaching men how to do this and how to make these photos, like what types of girls’ photos they should feed into the model to train it. It was really, really dark. And I think that we are headed for a future where that’s gonna become more normalized than not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>YouTube is teeming with tutorials to get rich quick by using generative AI to make explicit content. Almost all of the tutorials are taught by men who are profiting off of AI content based on real women. Some people refer to this as digital pimping. Ej thinks that phrasing is actually too mild. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it’s digital exploitation. I think it is digital trafficking, essentially. These guys are really invested in creating a reality where women who do not consent to being sexualized at all can have anything they want done with their images. No matter how old they are, no matter where they work, what they do. These guys just use the internet as free reign to humiliate them, because that’s really what it’s about. It’s not about getting off. It’s about humiliation. It’s about the lack of consent is the point. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Then there’s this practice of using AI influencers as bait. Ej recently broke this big story about the gay dating app Goose. Goose was marketed as a wholesome social platform. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Basically positioning it as a competitor to Grindr, except it would be less casual sex and hookup focused and more focused on socializing and making friends and forming real human connections. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Goose deployed a small army of hot gay influencers to recruit other gay men. These influencers would follow gay guys and add them to their Close Friends story or slide into their DMs with a “hey, you seem cool.” And eventually, they’d send an invite code to Goose. All of these influencers were AI-generated. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That was a big part of their marketing strategy, is making these very believable looking hot guy accounts with like 300, 400, 500 followers who like, worked in very realistic jobs. Like, one of the guys said he worked for Strava, like, another one of guys said he worked for like, David Zwirner Gallery. And that’s really convincing. And I think it really messed with a lot of people’s perceptions of reality and their ability to discern what is AI and what isn’t. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej said she could understand why people fell for it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>In order to get on Goose, because it’s invite only at this point, and you obviously have to be a gay man to join it, I made my own AI-generated hot guy influencer account. I was trying to make it really convincing. So I was like, give him beards, give him tattoos, like, make him live in Crown Heights, make him be like, a record producer/engineer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more that I was like, generating these photos and generating this guy’s biography, I was like, oh my God, I’ve made the hottest man in the world. Like, I would absolutely have sex with this. Honestly, and this is a huge compliment to my husband. Like, he looked a lot like my husband, so even I, like, for a split second, was kind of deceived by the too-good-to-be-true element of AI, at least momentarily. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Compared to other examples Ej just talked about, was what Sam did really that bad? There’s a spectrum of AI thirst trap grifts. Ultimately, Sam did profit off of Emily Hart, but was he causing harm to anyone? That’s less clear. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And then on the other hand, you have those evil motherf*ckers who are posting YouTube tutorials to young men teaching them how to take some high school girls’ photo off of Instagram and run her through a nudify app and make money off that. And the technology is getting better every day. It’s just getting easier and easier and easier and easier to do. It took me five minutes to make my hot gay man thirst trap guy. For Goose, it took the guys who were posting those YouTube tutorials, they were saying it took them 10 minutes. I think six months ago, the question would have been is the juice worth the squeeze? And now, like, there is no squeeze, you know? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Well, the squeeze is no longer worth it for Sam. After Emily Hart’s account was banned for good, Sam tried to make another. But he found that, somehow, Meta banded him too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Even now my phone is blacklisted. If I use another number it will be blacklisted. So I cannot even create an Instagram account. Even if it’s not for all this like, Like, I created another Instagram account for personal use stuff and it deletes it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As lucrative as Emily Hart was, Sam’s kind of over the whole thing anyway. He doesn’t want to deal with the creeps, and he’s tired of pretending to be racist for engagement. And he’s got other stuff going on in his life. He’s about to graduate from medical school. His whole university career, he dreamed of moving to the U.S. It was going to be his ticket out of India’s economic crisis and caste system. But, this whole ordeal with Emily Hart combined with other factors, has him second-guessing his life plan. That’s a new tab: should I move to America? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sam had mapped out his entire career strategy when he started university, making sure to check all the boxes required to land a residency match in the U.S., which is already competitive, but even more so for international students. But he was determined. The United States Medical Licensing Exam is an incredibly rigorous process. It’s split into three parts over multiple years. Step one, which students take during their first years of medical school, is eight hours long. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I cleared it in my first attempt, like, you only get one chance and I cleared it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>According to his plan, he should be taking step two soon. But since clearing the first exam, he’s watched immigration to the U.S. Become more and more difficult under the Trump administration. And now he’s rethinking his plan. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, Donald Trump has made it so difficult to, even if you’re talented, they don’t want you. Even if you do everything right, there is no guarantee. He did like hundreds of policy changes, like, every day he wakes up, he do a policy change. It’s like, you know you can’t predict him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The Trump administration’s immigration policies have wreaked havoc on the medical training system, from implementing strict time limits on visas for trainees, to stalling visa renewals for doctors who are already practicing here. There’s also the $100,000 entry fee for H-1B visa holders, which a lot of rural hospitals just can’t afford. And amid the constant flux in the White House’s policies, ICE officers have targeted, detained, and deported immigrants, even if their visas are still valid. Sam has watched it all unfold while finishing school. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And one day, I was like, it’s enough, I give up, like, I don’t want to gamble with my future. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And, immigration policies aside, his interactions with Americans, as Emily Hart, have soured his opinion of the U.S. He did choose to pander to people who have extremely racist and xenophobic stances, and he did stoke these viewpoints with Emily’s content. But at the same time, it wasn’t lost on him that if these followers knew who he really was, he’d probably be the target of their vitriol too. He said that a lot of these interactions reinforced his beliefs about conservative America. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but you know, stereotype doesn’t write themselves, okay? Like, stereotype exists for a reason. I learned that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So making it in America, the land of opportunity and Grand Theft Auto, is no longer Sam’s goal. He said many of his classmates feel the same way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Because of this, many of the talented people are going to countries like Japan, Germany, like, good European countries, like,even UAE. People are saying, don’t go to the United States. And even after all this, you have to face racism on that. It’s not worth it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam considered trying to get into a specialty training program in other English-speaking countries, but he’s not sure of that either. The political climates in those countries aren’t the most welcoming right now. The UK has tightened its visa pathways and increased restrictions for international workers. And Australia recently placed Indian students in the high-risk visa category. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, nobody is willing to accept Indians, but the sentiment is very anti-immigration right now. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam said a lot of young people would actually want to stay in India if it weren’t for the caste system and tanking job market. He said that the reservation system, which was designed to uplift the most oppressed castes, leaves the middle class to compete for opportunities with the ultra-wealthy. But despite all his gripes with his home country and his lifelong dream of getting out, he is actually planning to stay for now. He scrapped his U.S. Immigration plans. Instead, he’s been studying for the big national entrance exam for India’s medical post-grad programs. He’s sitting for it at the end of the month. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It wasn’t worth it for Sam to maintain Emily Hart’s Fanvue without having an Instagram to direct traffic to it. But he does still need to make money. And since he’s studying six to eight hours a day on top of his clinical work, he doesn’t have time for a nine to five. A few weeks ago, Sam started working on what he calls a more ethical version of Emily Hart, helping brands create AI influencers to promote their products. He doubts it’ll be as financially rewarding as Emily Hart. It’s essentially a marketing gig, which he said was kind of boring. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like Emily was another level of fun, it was like, you know, you get an adrenaline rush every day, you see like 2000 followers are adding up, there are people tipping on you, there are are people that are going crazy for you, or like people are copying you. It was a whole different level of, you can say, fun. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But even if he could get around the meta ban, Sam has zero interest in attempting to create another Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> I used to think that you can, you know, easily make good amount of money effortlessly. All this AI creator and stuff didn’t take a lot of effort. It was hardly 15 to 30 minutes a day of work. And actually, it made a good amount of money. But what I concluded is that like, you cannot make a good amount money consistently without putting in effort. That’s my takeaway. If it feels too good to be true, then it is too good to be true.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>That’s it for this extra deep, deep dive into the saga of Emily Hart, and, more importantly, the story of the real guy who created her. Special thanks to Sam and Ej for sharing this with us. We have opened so many tabs for this series, but if you feel like you still need to open more, we’ll link to some further reading in the show notes. And as usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay. It’s finally time, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and it’s reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Lauren Yoon is our intern and was also the associate producer on this episode. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor-in-chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. This episode also includes clips from The View, Fox & Friends, and Hot 97. It also includes AI-generated clips of Emily Hart, courtesy of Sam. Thanks for listening! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, I’ve tried a lot of things like trading bots, like stock market and stuff. I got good success in that, but then I lost a lot of money, I lost $1,000 in stock market, then I quit it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "The Emily Hart Saga, Part 1: MAGA’s AI Dream Girl",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Emily Hart was a pickup-driving, Trump-supporting blonde bombshell who frequently posted photos on Instagram along with captions about “deporting illegals.” Within a few weeks she gained thousands of followers. It was like she was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere — because she was. A 22-year-old medical student in India who goes by “Sam” is the person behind Emily Hart, and he shepherded her to viral fame with a combination of right-wing engagement baiting and AI assistance. Reporter Ej Dickson, who wrote about Sam and Emily Hart for WIRED, describes how he was able to grift so many conservative men. And Sam himself explains how something that began as a fun side-hustle took a disturbing turn.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8396912565\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/author/ej-dickson/\">Ej Dickson\u003c/a>, senior culture writer at\u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>“Sam,” creator of AI MAGA Influencer Emily Hart\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/\">This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men \u003c/a> — Ej Dickson, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/ai-generated-influencers-a-new-wave-of-cultural-exploitation-248956\">AI‑generated influencers: A new wave of cultural exploitation\u003c/a> — Ateqah Khaki & Vinita Srivastava, \u003cem>The Conversation\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-brandi-love-the-pro-trump-porn-star-who-writes-for-the-federalist/\">Meet Brandi Love, the Pro-Trump Porn Star Who Writes for The Federalist\u003c/a> — Marlow Stern, \u003cem>The Daily Beast \u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://theworld.org/stories/2026/06/19/challenges-under-indias-university-reservation-system\">Challenges under India’s university reservation system \u003c/a> — Namrata Kolachalam, \u003cem>The World \u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Follow us on \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Instagram\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">TikTok\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cem>\u003cem>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hi Tabby Cats, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends — post about it. You too, can be part of our volunteer clipping army. We can’t let the looksmaxxers win the clip wars. Okay, let’s get to the show. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just a note, this episode contains some graphic descriptions of sexual content, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>So, Emily Hart was a 23-year-old nurse, I believe? Born in Buffalo, lived in New York City, who loved ice fishing and Michelob Light and America. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej Dickson is a reporter for Wired. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>My job is to explain things that people are too afraid to Google at work. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And at the beginning of the year, she started looking into this influencer… who went by Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And she was a very pretty blonde girl, she looked a little bit like Jennifer Lawrence… loved posing on her pickup truck, in American flag bikinis. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily frequently wore a bright red, “Make America Great Again” hat in her photos. She would post Instagram reels set to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with captions laden with American flag emojis. Most of her content was about deporting, quote, “illegals” and supporting Trump. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Love posting racist memes and transphobic memes — you know, touching every single one of the MAGA bases. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She had that no-makeup makeup look, and when she wasn’t in a bikini or ice fishing, she posted about being a nurse. Within a few weeks of starting her account, Emily Hart had more than 10,000 followers. It was like everything about her was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There are certain aspects of the Emily Hart brand that are so uniquely American that people who are only from America would understand like, ice fishing or Michelob Ultra and sort of the status that it has as the beer of like, the MAGA world. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She’s a Trump supporter’s perfect woman. There’s just one problem — Emily Hart is not real. She’s completely AI-generated. If you look past her perfect body, bleached hair, and very polarizing captions, you’d spot the inconsistencies. I mean, who goes ice fishing in a bikini? EJ said that those inconsistencies are what tipped her off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Her profile said that she went to school in New York and currently lived in New York and she was from Buffalo — like the chances are very low that somebody that explicitly conservative would move to New York City for college and live in New York city and be like, a real human being — honestly. I mean, I’m sure they exist — I don’t think they look like Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in 2024, following Trump’s presidential win, EJ started seeing all of these tradwife-adjacent videos. They almost all featured a beautiful young blonde woman, in her 20s, kneading dough or sweeping the floor of a rustic kitchen. And, unlike the more modestly dressed tradwife influencers who popularized this content, the women in these videos were almost always wearing very low- cut dresses. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There was sort of this sense of uncanny valley attached to them where it was like, “Oh these don’t really look like real people,” but they’re obviously trying to cater to a real… and honestly very terrifying audience. So, I started digging into it, because I saw one or two of these accounts and I was like “I bet there are more of them,” and just fell down this rabbit hole of AI MAGA hot girl accounts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was just one of countless AI MAGA hot girls taking over Instagram. These women are not real, but the people running their accounts are — and Ej found one of them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My pseudonym is Sam. I am a 22-year-old medical student. Currently, I am in my final year of medical school, and that’s pretty much it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam is the creator of Emily Hart, and what began as a get-rich-quick scheme for him quickly spiraled out of control. So, who is Sam, and what would possess him to create an AI MAGA hot girl? The saga of Emily Hart is such a wild ride that we’re actually going to split this deep dive into two parts. There’s so much to unpack here about the strange intersection of politics, AI, virtual influencers, privilege, and digital sex work. But today, we’re starting with Sam’s story. How did this 22-year-old student in India manage to dupe so many conservative men? Ready? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know how every good deep dive starts. Let’s open a new tab: Who is the real Emily Hart? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’ve probably picked up on this by now, but this tab is not about Emily Hart at all. It’s about the guy who made her. And in some ways, he’s like a lot of other straight guys his age. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I’m a big time gym rat. Like, even right now like, I’m talking to you and I’m completing my daily steps. Building a lean physique, getting shredded — that gives me happiness. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He asked that we call him Sam. We’re using a pseudonym for him because he’s in his final year of medical school, and is concerned about how this story could jeopardize his medical career and ability to emigrate to another country after graduation. Sam is 22, lives in northern India, and is studying orthopedic surgery. He’s from a middle-class family. Like a lot of Indians, he lives in an intergenerational household with his parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, my cousins, they are like my real brother and sister — you get a lot of love, you get a lot of support. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And Sam has always been fascinated by American culture. When I got on a call with him, he was like, “Wait, you live in Los Angeles? Is it really like Grand Theft Auto?” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I follow American politics. I wanted to do my post-graduation from USA. I was super into American culture, like — playing GTA, Grand Theft Auto, like, watching, uh, you can say, TV show, of like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and all. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it’s not just pop culture that made him want to immigrate here. He also wanted to leave India altogether. As close as his family is, his upbringing was, at times, strained. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It was not pleasant, you can say. Like, there is this thing called caste system in India. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s caste system is thousands of years old. Historically, castes were tied to specific occupations. The higher castes were priests and warriors and rulers. The middle caste were merchants and skilled artisans. The lower caste did farm work or were servants. And then, there were people who were considered “untouchable” — and they faced the most discrimination, even today. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>To make up for generations of discrimination and economic inequality, the Indian government has a series of programs called “reservation.” It’s kind of like affirmative action — with strict quotas. A certain percentage of government jobs and public university spots are reserved for members of lower castes. The reservation system is very controversial in India, because it’s not based on current financial status. It’s based purely on caste, which is fixed at birth. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You know, like, reservation and caste system were introduced to uplift the lower class — uplift the backward people. It started as a good idea. You know, my family has decent money, like — okay-okay money — we are not very rich. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam’s ancestors were jewelers and fell into that middle tier of merchants and artisans. They’ve been solidly middle-class for generations. His family could not have afforded private school, so he had to compete for one of the very limited spots at his public university. There’s a key tension here between caste and class. Sam doesn’t come from a ton of money. He doesn’t have the same resources and safety net that the upper echelon of Indian society has. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The reservation system was designed to level the playing field. While it uplifts the most oppressed classes, Sam feels like it leaves the middle class behind. He said his own opportunities in India are limited — and that there’s no upward mobility for him. Becoming a doctor was never his great life goal… but, it’s a stable career that offers a considerably better salary than other jobs in India. And, there’s demand for doctors all over the world — he sees it as a ticket out of the caste system. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sam had his sights set on America. He saw it as a land of meritocracy and Grand Theft Auto. But while his parents helped him with tuition and licensing exam fees, he wanted to travel. He needed to buy his protein powder so that he could, as he put it, “get shredded.” And he wanted save up for his potential move to the U.S. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, he needed money. The problem? He’s in his last year of a five-and-a-half year medical program — and when he isn’t in class or working his medical internship, he’s studying for this big entrance exam to get into a post-grad medical specialty program. Plus, the job market in India sucks. Sam said that most entry-level, part-time jobs that college students typically get pay like, a dollar an hour. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If you work four hours per day for a whole month, you can hardly earn like, $100 for a month. And like, I didn’t want to, you know, put so much effort for so little cash. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> And, Sam is a product of his generation. It’s not just his gym rat tendencies. It’s what made his story so compelling to Ej. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Sam is, I think, pretty representative of Gen Z males, in that there’s very much an emphasis on like, online side hustles. There were a lot of things that he tried to do to make money. He was doing online fitness coaching for a while, he was doing some of that like, drop shipping nonsense that all the Gen Z boys do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He tutored and sold notes and study guides for the U.S. medical licensing exam, which he already passed. He once saw Instagram ads about monetizing AI clips, so he started making AI Roblox videos for YouTube shorts. He was kind of just… chasing side hustles until something stuck. Then, while scrolling through Instagram, he came across this influencer. She was gorgeous, but Sam could tell she was AI-generated. And yet, she had a huge audience — all from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>She uploads pictures with Donald Trump. She’s a blonde military girl that uploads pictures with Donald Trump — and like, she had like, thousands and millions of likes, thousands of followers, so I wanted to create that. Like, Donald Trump — everyone knows him, everyone knows what he is doing, and you know, even like, me and my friends who follow American politics, we used to joke around MAGA people that they are so dumb, like they don’t understand anything… and like how can someone support Donald Trump? Like, after all that he’s doing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He hatched a plan: make a hot AI girl, go viral, and get rich. He opened Google’s AI image generator, also known as Nano Banana Pro. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I use a lot of Gemini. I never use ChatGPT — I am a Gemini guy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam initially tried to make the Indian version of the blonde military girl influencer, but it didn’t work out. For one, he said that because mainstream AI models are trained on American culture, Gemini struggled to generate a realistic-looking Indian woman. The hot Indian girl he was trying to create just looked… fake. And the second issue: he realized that Indian men just don’t spend money the way American men do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> And like USA, there is big tipping culture — people, you know, easily pay- they are more willing to pay. That’s why I changed it to an American influencer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But first, he had to decide what this American influencer would be like. Sam turned to Gemini, which told him the influencer shouldn’t just be a “pretty girl.” She needed depth. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You shouldn’t create- just create a beautiful women with no personality. You want people to connect with your Instagram model — then they will be connected with you, then they will buy your services, etcetera. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam had a new plan: create a hot blonde AI girl, go viral, and get rich. She would appeal to the typical American man — so that Sam could cash in on those sweet American tips. And she wouldn’t just look the part, she would have the personality of an all-American girl. Through TV shows, video games, and following American politics, he was familiar enough with American culture to pull it off. With a couple of curated prompts, he had a handful of images to start her account. The last thing he needed was a name. And that came from Gemini too: Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey guys, just enjoying the sun by the pool today. This feels so good. I’m gonna dip my toes in, so refreshing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily took off — thousands of followers in just a few weeks. Sam had unlocked the formula to reach a very specific group of American men. So, how did he do it? We’re getting into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going! You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break, Emily Hart goes MAGA. Stick around. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: Becoming Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At Gemini’s suggestion, Sam created a profile for Emily Hart, a blonde nurse from Buffalo who lives in New York City. It was pretty generic at first. He started posting as Emily in January, and immediately started getting attention… from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Once I created it, like, initially four or five DMs, all the DMs I got, was from, you can say, old 60, 70-year-old, MAGA people like, pro-MAGA, pro-right — like, those. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And Gemini was apparently like, “You need to make a MAGA girl. You need to like a hot MAGA in a bikini, like, that’s gold.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He started posting images of Emily ice-fishing, drinking beer, and sexily firing rounds at the shooting range. He wrote captions like: \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>If you want a reason to unfollow? Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>POV: you were assigned intelligent at birth, but you identify as a liberal. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Followed by a clown emoji.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He approached it as a craft, and he really spent a lot of time trying to perfect his craft on Gemini —because the space was so saturated, that he really needed a gimmick or a niche to kind of corner in order to be successful. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It took a couple of weeks of consistent posting, but the payoff was real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It took me three weeks to get initial 1,000 subscribers. And from there, in one week, I had like 14,000-15,000 subscribers, 20 million views and like, all that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It helped that Emily’s audience wasn’t the most tech savvy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I want to be clear that Gemini did not explicitly say this, but I do think that that audience is probably less technologically well-versed than progressives are, and therefore more gullible and more prone to falling toward this kind of scheme. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam echoed this… more strongly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but — like, what I have observed, like, the liberals and the left-wing people, they are usually smart. They are — you know, they have basic common sense. And you know, the MAGA people are like, super dumb people. I should not say that, but they are like — you can say they are not that aware on, you can say, technology. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That’s not to say that there aren’t easily duped liberals. I do think that internet MAGA has a much, much stronger digital aesthetic than progressives do, for sure. There’s an iconography attached to it — and just seeing like, a blonde white girl wearing an American flag bikini while ice fishing, I mean, how much more MAGA can you get? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s very strong visual political identity resonated with her followers. Maybe that’s why they were less likely to be suspicious of her — the bright red MAGA hat she often wore also helped obscure some of the inconsistencies in her post. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>AI really, you know, messes up the hair also. So, to get around that, I used to include a MAGA cap in like, every image I make. So basically, like, I used to include accessories like sunglasses and MAGA cap to, you know, get two different… like, make it more believable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so it wasn’t even just, like, to appeal to MAGA. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, it was — you know, it was beneficial in both ways. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or, maybe they didn’t suspect anything because she was hot, and that was disarming enough. Because, there were definitely red flags in Emily’s content. Video generation was less convincing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey, handsome. I just got back to my tiny apartment after a 12-hour shift at Bellevue. NYC is just so loud tonight, but honestly? All I can think about is how much I missed you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So Sam usually stuck to images — but even then, he said Gemini couldn’t quite get the eyes right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, you can say that it’s- it might not be real — there is something wrong with the picture. So you know what I used to do? Like, I used include sunglasses in every picture — every picture, I used to include sunglasses. Like, she’s wearing black sunglasses everywhere. Like she is ice-fishing, she is wearing sunglasses, like she’s inside her home, she’s wearing sunglasses. Even at night, she’s wearing sunglasses. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam studied up on MAGA ideology and how Trump supporters interact online. Every day, he’d spend 30 minutes to an hour creating content that was pro-Second Amendment, anti-immigrant, and anti-abortion. The more divisive the caption, the more engagement he got as Emily. He didn’t believe in any of this, but he knew what would get attention. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Weirdly, it was a scam that only somebody who was really interested in American culture could have pulled off, I think. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam has a real knack for engagement bait: engineering content that tricks social media algorithms to boost a post. Like, he was inspired by this TikTok trend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There was a trend — on this song, like, it was around two years ago and it was this song — “I’m stylish, big top, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of TikTok trend video]: \u003c/strong>Bitch I’m stylish, black talk, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish. Watch on my wrist but I want that…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The videos usually started with someone getting ready, in a frumpy get-up — and, when the beat dropped, it would cut to them, fully glammed up. Sam was inspired by that split-second transition on the beat. So, using other songs, he put his own spin on it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I used to upload like, you can say, a catfish type of reel. There was like, four to six seconds reel of Emily Hart, a picture with her like, normal clothes. And then I used a sneak-in, like, for a millisecond, a picture of her in a swimsuit, you can say… sort of, like, a decent word — a swimsuit. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Driven by horny curiosity, viewers would try to pause the video in time to see the picture. And if they didn’t catch it in time, they’d have to play the video again. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And for that, they used to again and again, see multiple times, like four, five times, six times. So that Instagram gets the signal that this reel is so good that people are viewing it five to six times, so promote it. So normally I used to get like 200, 300 views, and like, these type of views used to get like, 10,000, 50,000, 25,000 views. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was a hit. Within a few weeks, she had over 15,000 followers on Instagram — which is a fraction of what the most popular real influencers have, but to build this following in such a short time period with such minimal effort? Real influencers grind for months to build that. Sam felt like he had unlocked something. His MAGA influencer was going strong, but he wondered if there was an untapped market out there. So… he tried to recreate the magic of Emily Hart, but this time for a liberal audience. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was very stereotypical. I mean, less aggressively so than Emily Hart, but it was like a girl with dyed red hair and a nose ring who would like post cute selfies with a coffee cup in Bushwick. You know, it was very generic. It was clear that she wasn’t as fully fleshed out as Emily Hart was. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, it was a complete flop because people used to know that it’s an AI flop and they like, usually didn’t interact with it, like, they didn’t comment. They were like, “This is AI slop, this is trash, we don’t have time,” something like that. And like, the MAGA people were like crazy — “Are you single? Can I message you?” Something like that. They were, you can say, a little more lusty, you can say. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, it was fine. Sam had his hands full with Emily, anyway. In the early days, he got a real kick out of duping conservative men who had no idea they were talking to a 22-year-old Indian guy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They were super racist. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>When he created Emily’s Facebook profile, he accidentally set his location to New Delhi. A random man messaged the profile. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So, like, he went through my Facebook profile, he went through that, and he saw New Delhi. And he was like, “Have you been to India?” And I didn’t even say anything. And he used to like, “India is not a good place. It’s not safe for women. You shouldn’t have gone there.” And you know, the racist comments. And I didn’t talk to him. Like, he said, “Hi,” I said, “Hello.” Okay — then he started all this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it never occurred to him that he could be just talking to someone who was Indian? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>No. It was a little fun like, you know, like, making a fool of such people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But this wasn’t just for fun. The entire reason he got into this was to make some cash. So, how did he monetize Emily Hart? That’s a new tab: why was Emily Hart so successful? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instagram is very strict about nudity and adult content. So, like many real human sex workers, Emily’s Instagram account was a vehicle to drive engagement to another site: Fanvue. The most popular subscription platform for adult content is OnlyFans. Using AI tools to edit content and manage messages is allowed, but the site totally bans “synthetic personas” — fully AI-generated characters like Emily Hart. In fact, a lot of adult subscription sites do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, Sam used Fanvue, which is where a lot AI influencers sell nudes. Google’s Gemini blocks the generation of explicit content, and although there are ways to get around it, Sam’s hustle was all about doing the least amount of work for the most amount of money. So, he used Grok. He generated a couple nudes, uploaded them to Fanvue, set a subscription fee, and locked the juiciest content behind a paywall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then… the cash started rolling in. Sam was blown away at how easily Americans spent money. He couldn’t believe they were tipping him — or really, Emily — just to respond to their messages. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People used to hugely tip. I don’t know why people tip in USA — like, I am 22 years old, I have never in my life once seen someone tipping in India. And like, people were like, crazy, they used to tip me $20, $10, and I was thinking like, “Why people are sending me extra money? I dont know.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He made a few thousand dollars within days of starting the account. Again, human adult content creators grind for years to get this kind of audience… and to generate anything close to this amount of revenue. What was it about Emily that made her so popular? Ej has a theory. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think that probably at the time that Sam was doing this, the space was a little less saturated, so there was less competition. And, I think, probably the most major contributor to this is the fact that there’s a really strong element of self-delusion at play here, right? In order to buy into Emily Hart’s whole persona, you not only have to believe that this woman exists, you have to be believe that she is a hot 24-year-old girl who exists and believes exactly the same things as you do — and validates every single opinion you have. I think these men got off to that probably more than anything. And I think that’s very powerful for the MAGA sect. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>There are real adult content creators who are also conservative. Ej pointed to Brandi Love, who’s known for making MILF porn and also being a vocal Trump supporter. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think what differentiates Emily from someone like Brandi, is Brandi does not make it integral to her persona, right? She very rarely posts about politics, and that’s Emily’s entire brand is combining politics with sex. With the conservative adult creators, the politics are kind of incidental to the main product, which is the sex. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam knew he was playing into some kind of fantasy, and soon after starting the Fanvue account, started feeling really bad about it. He didn’t like the idea of deceiving anyone for money. Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI, but Sam wasn’t making money there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If someone paid for my Fanvue, I used to disclose it — like, you should know this, before spending like, too much money. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And when subscribers sent him additional tips on Fanvue, he’d actually message them back. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, I used to say to them — “That you should know, I’m artificially generated.”. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The wild thing is, the subscribers didn’t seem to care at all — even when Sam reminded them that the girl they were paying wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, two or three people messaged me, like, “We think that you are AI-generated, but we love the reels you are making. You are supporting Trump, you are supporting the Republicans, so we will support you. We don’t care.” So, many were like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really don’t think that the majority of these men care if the woman on the other side of the screen is fake — and that’s kind of the scariest part to me, because I think that that principle applies to AI-generated content on the internet in general. I don’t think people care if something is real or fake anymore. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>What would drive Emily Hart subscribers to continue following her, subscribing to her exclusive content, and even paying to DM her if they knew she wasn’t really a hot 24-year-old, pickup truck-driving, ice-fishing nurse in New York City? They knew the pictures they were liking and saving — among other things — were generated using AI. At that point, why continue following her? Why not just chat with an AI girlfriend on Character AI or something? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really think it comes down to this idea of intimacy, which is the whole reason why OnlyFans blew up in the first place. Like, the whole premise of OnlyFans is that men are directly connecting with the objects of their fantasies. And, the level of intimacy that is provided by that exchange goes beyond sex, it goes beyond getting off. It really is about human connection. So I think that a lot of the men who paid for Emily Hart’s content were sort of willing to suspend their disbelief in exchange for that element of intimacy, of connection, of human interaction that they were trying to convince themselves that they were getting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was making way more money than he ever could have made working a part-time job during school. Every day, he generates some more Emily content and come up with a racist, xenophobic caption that he knew would get attention. He kept an eye on all the viral trends that other hot girls, AI or not, were doing on Instagram and TikTok. Emily’s fans weren’t just American either. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I got a guy from Germany, I got a guy from Switzerland, like, many different people. Like, on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like, my DM was filled, every day I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam ignored most of the Instagram messages, but made sure that Fanvue subscribers got a response, because they had to pay to unlock those. The site has an AI feature that generates messages based on previous chats, so he could automate responses. Although he didn’t have to respond to subscribers himself, he did have to see what they sent back. And they were getting a little too comfortable in Emily’s DMs. That’s a whole new tab: Emily Hart’s Simp Army. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the upside? Sam made a good amount of money as Emily Hart. The downside? He was dealing with some real creeps. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I can’t even say what people were sending me to Instagram, like, it’s inappropriate. But like, people are sending inappropriate images, inappropriate messages. “Hey, are you single? What’s up? Where do you live?” Like, these are general. But like, some people were like, so creepy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Navigating the internet as Emily was an eye-opening experience for Sam. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My friends don’t even message me that much. When I started, I used to get like, 10-15 messages, easily. Like, so much attention. And I was thinking like, “Do pretty women get so much attention?” Like, I was like, surprised. But it’s not good kind of attention — it’s not the kind of attention people want. It’s super disgusting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As Emily Hart — patriot and rising Fanvue star —Sam experienced what women haven’t subjected to since the birth of texting: unsolicited dick pics. He was appalled. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image. Like, it was super weird, super creepy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He learned to stop checking Emily Hart’s Instagram messages, but he couldn’t ignore the ones on Fanvue, because that’s where he was making money. One guy on Fanvue sent him 50 bucks, and then to accompany the tip, the subscriber attached a video of himself, naked, humping a pillow that propped up a tablet with Emily’s nude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I mean, these guys were sending him cum tributes, like they were ejaculating on photos of Emily Hart, or like sending videos of themselves masturbating on Emily Hart’s photo — and he would have to see this, like, all the time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then, there was the emotional toll, too. The unsolicited videos were gross, but they were nothing compared to the trauma-dumping that Emily’s subscribers did in her DMs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He would get messages all the time from people who would buy her videos and buy her exclusive content — and they would be like, “Are you real or are you AI?” But then they would go on and talk about their days, or talk about how lonely they were, how much they hated their wives. I found Sam very thoughtful and self-reflective. I think that he felt guilty about deceiving them, honestly. They would share things with him sometimes that went beyond the typical OnlyFans model-subscriber relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just going back to that idea of intimacy and human connection, like they would talk about how terrible their marriages were and they hadn’t slept in the same bed as and their wives in years and how they recently lost a parent or a beloved family member. When there was a theoretical audience of dumb MAGA guys paying for this content, I think he was more comfortable with that than with engaging with them all on an individual level and being like, “Oh, these are real people with real problems.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The AI MAGA hot girl venture was supposed to be easy cash. And the fact that he was tricking Americans, whose politics he fundamentally disagreed with — who would probably be horrified to find out they were sending cum tributes to a 22-year-old Indian guy — felt like poetic justice. But the grift… stoped being fun. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it got too intense. I think he got burnt out by it very fast. He wasn’t doing it for very long. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then the Instagram ban started. The scammer accusations followed. Emily Hart, AKA Sam, was under fire. That’s it for part one of the story, but don’t worry. We’re not finished with this deep dive yet. Next week, we’re getting into the rest of the Emily Hart saga, the scammer debate, and what happened with Sam’s lifelong dream of moving to America. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. And if you’re dying to open more tabs before part two drops next week, we’ll link to some further reading in our show notes. We’re leaving these tabs open for now. So, come back for the rest of the story. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited and audio engineered by Chris Egusa. Production help from our intern, Lauren Yoon. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his White Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode includes AI-generated clips of Emily Hart, courtesy of Sam. We also used a clip of the song “Billie Eilish” by Armani White. Thanks for listening. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Can I say cum tributes on here or should I just- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But you will have to, uh — for the normies — explain what cum tributes are. \u003cem>[Laughs].\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Emily Hart was a pickup-driving, Trump-supporting blonde bombshell who frequently posted photos on Instagram along with captions about “deporting illegals.” Within a few weeks she gained thousands of followers. It was like she was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere — because she was. A 22-year-old medical student in India who goes by “Sam” is the person behind Emily Hart, and he shepherded her to viral fame with a combination of right-wing engagement baiting and AI assistance. Reporter Ej Dickson, who wrote about Sam and Emily Hart for WIRED, describes how he was able to grift so many conservative men. And Sam himself explains how something that began as a fun side-hustle took a disturbing turn.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hi Tabby Cats, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends — post about it. You too, can be part of our volunteer clipping army. We can’t let the looksmaxxers win the clip wars. Okay, let’s get to the show. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hi Tabby Cats, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends — post about it. You too, can be part of our volunteer clipping army. We can’t let the looksmaxxers win the clip wars. Okay, let’s get to the show. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Just a note, this episode contains some graphic descriptions of sexual content, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Just a note, this episode contains some graphic descriptions of sexual content, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>So, Emily Hart was a 23-year-old nurse, I believe? Born in Buffalo, lived in New York City, who loved ice fishing and Michelob Light and America. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>So, Emily Hart was a 23-year-old nurse, I believe? Born in Buffalo, lived in New York City, who loved ice fishing and Michelob Light and America. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej Dickson is a reporter for Wired. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej Dickson is a reporter for Wired. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>My job is to explain things that people are too afraid to Google at work. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>My job is to explain things that people are too afraid to Google at work. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And at the beginning of the year, she started looking into this influencer… who went by Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And at the beginning of the year, she started looking into this influencer… who went by Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And she was a very pretty blonde girl, she looked a little bit like Jennifer Lawrence… loved posing on her pickup truck, in American flag bikinis. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And she was a very pretty blonde girl, she looked a little bit like Jennifer Lawrence… loved posing on her pickup truck, in American flag bikinis. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily frequently wore a bright red, “Make America Great Again” hat in her photos. She would post Instagram reels set to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with captions laden with American flag emojis. Most of her content was about deporting, quote, “illegals” and supporting Trump. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily frequently wore a bright red, “Make America Great Again” hat in her photos. She would post Instagram reels set to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with captions laden with American flag emojis. Most of her content was about deporting, quote, “illegals” and supporting Trump. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Love posting racist memes and transphobic memes — you know, touching every single one of the MAGA bases. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Love posting racist memes and transphobic memes — you know, touching every single one of the MAGA bases. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She had that no-makeup makeup look, and when she wasn’t in a bikini or ice fishing, she posted about being a nurse. Within a few weeks of starting her account, Emily Hart had more than 10,000 followers. It was like everything about her was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She had that no-makeup makeup look, and when she wasn’t in a bikini or ice fishing, she posted about being a nurse. Within a few weeks of starting her account, Emily Hart had more than 10,000 followers. It was like everything about her was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There are certain aspects of the Emily Hart brand that are so uniquely American that people who are only from America would understand like, ice fishing or Michelob Ultra and sort of the status that it has as the beer of like, the MAGA world. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There are certain aspects of the Emily Hart brand that are so uniquely American that people who are only from America would understand like, ice fishing or Michelob Ultra and sort of the status that it has as the beer of like, the MAGA world. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She’s a Trump supporter’s perfect woman. There’s just one problem — Emily Hart is not real. She’s completely AI-generated. If you look past her perfect body, bleached hair, and very polarizing captions, you’d spot the inconsistencies. I mean, who goes ice fishing in a bikini? EJ said that those inconsistencies are what tipped her off. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She’s a Trump supporter’s perfect woman. There’s just one problem — Emily Hart is not real. She’s completely AI-generated. If you look past her perfect body, bleached hair, and very polarizing captions, you’d spot the inconsistencies. I mean, who goes ice fishing in a bikini? EJ said that those inconsistencies are what tipped her off. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Her profile said that she went to school in New York and currently lived in New York and she was from Buffalo — like the chances are very low that somebody that explicitly conservative would move to New York City for college and live in New York city and be like, a real human being — honestly. I mean, I’m sure they exist — I don’t think they look like Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Her profile said that she went to school in New York and currently lived in New York and she was from Buffalo — like the chances are very low that somebody that explicitly conservative would move to New York City for college and live in New York city and be like, a real human being — honestly. I mean, I’m sure they exist — I don’t think they look like Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in 2024, following Trump’s presidential win, EJ started seeing all of these tradwife-adjacent videos. They almost all featured a beautiful young blonde woman, in her 20s, kneading dough or sweeping the floor of a rustic kitchen. And, unlike the more modestly dressed tradwife influencers who popularized this content, the women in these videos were almost always wearing very low- cut dresses. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in 2024, following Trump’s presidential win, EJ started seeing all of these tradwife-adjacent videos. They almost all featured a beautiful young blonde woman, in her 20s, kneading dough or sweeping the floor of a rustic kitchen. And, unlike the more modestly dressed tradwife influencers who popularized this content, the women in these videos were almost always wearing very low- cut dresses. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There was sort of this sense of uncanny valley attached to them where it was like, “Oh these don’t really look like real people,” but they’re obviously trying to cater to a real… and honestly very terrifying audience. So, I started digging into it, because I saw one or two of these accounts and I was like “I bet there are more of them,” and just fell down this rabbit hole of AI MAGA hot girl accounts. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There was sort of this sense of uncanny valley attached to them where it was like, “Oh these don’t really look like real people,” but they’re obviously trying to cater to a real… and honestly very terrifying audience. So, I started digging into it, because I saw one or two of these accounts and I was like “I bet there are more of them,” and just fell down this rabbit hole of AI MAGA hot girl accounts. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was just one of countless AI MAGA hot girls taking over Instagram. These women are not real, but the people running their accounts are — and Ej found one of them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was just one of countless AI MAGA hot girls taking over Instagram. These women are not real, but the people running their accounts are — and Ej found one of them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My pseudonym is Sam. I am a 22-year-old medical student. Currently, I am in my final year of medical school, and that’s pretty much it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My pseudonym is Sam. I am a 22-year-old medical student. Currently, I am in my final year of medical school, and that’s pretty much it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam is the creator of Emily Hart, and what began as a get-rich-quick scheme for him quickly spiraled out of control. So, who is Sam, and what would possess him to create an AI MAGA hot girl? The saga of Emily Hart is such a wild ride that we’re actually going to split this deep dive into two parts. There’s so much to unpack here about the strange intersection of politics, AI, virtual influencers, privilege, and digital sex work. But today, we’re starting with Sam’s story. How did this 22-year-old student in India manage to dupe so many conservative men? Ready? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam is the creator of Emily Hart, and what began as a get-rich-quick scheme for him quickly spiraled out of control. So, who is Sam, and what would possess him to create an AI MAGA hot girl? The saga of Emily Hart is such a wild ride that we’re actually going to split this deep dive into two parts. There’s so much to unpack here about the strange intersection of politics, AI, virtual influencers, privilege, and digital sex work. But today, we’re starting with Sam’s story. How did this 22-year-old student in India manage to dupe so many conservative men? Ready? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know how every good deep dive starts. Let’s open a new tab: Who is the real Emily Hart? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know how every good deep dive starts. Let’s open a new tab: Who is the real Emily Hart? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’ve probably picked up on this by now, but this tab is not about Emily Hart at all. It’s about the guy who made her. And in some ways, he’s like a lot of other straight guys his age. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’ve probably picked up on this by now, but this tab is not about Emily Hart at all. It’s about the guy who made her. And in some ways, he’s like a lot of other straight guys his age. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I’m a big time gym rat. Like, even right now like, I’m talking to you and I’m completing my daily steps. Building a lean physique, getting shredded — that gives me happiness. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I’m a big time gym rat. Like, even right now like, I’m talking to you and I’m completing my daily steps. Building a lean physique, getting shredded — that gives me happiness. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He asked that we call him Sam. We’re using a pseudonym for him because he’s in his final year of medical school, and is concerned about how this story could jeopardize his medical career and ability to emigrate to another country after graduation. Sam is 22, lives in northern India, and is studying orthopedic surgery. He’s from a middle-class family. Like a lot of Indians, he lives in an intergenerational household with his parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He asked that we call him Sam. We’re using a pseudonym for him because he’s in his final year of medical school, and is concerned about how this story could jeopardize his medical career and ability to emigrate to another country after graduation. Sam is 22, lives in northern India, and is studying orthopedic surgery. He’s from a middle-class family. Like a lot of Indians, he lives in an intergenerational household with his parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, my cousins, they are like my real brother and sister — you get a lot of love, you get a lot of support. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, my cousins, they are like my real brother and sister — you get a lot of love, you get a lot of support. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And Sam has always been fascinated by American culture. When I got on a call with him, he was like, “Wait, you live in Los Angeles? Is it really like Grand Theft Auto?” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And Sam has always been fascinated by American culture. When I got on a call with him, he was like, “Wait, you live in Los Angeles? Is it really like Grand Theft Auto?” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I follow American politics. I wanted to do my post-graduation from USA. I was super into American culture, like — playing GTA, Grand Theft Auto, like, watching, uh, you can say, TV show, of like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and all. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I follow American politics. I wanted to do my post-graduation from USA. I was super into American culture, like — playing GTA, Grand Theft Auto, like, watching, uh, you can say, TV show, of like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and all. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it’s not just pop culture that made him want to immigrate here. He also wanted to leave India altogether. As close as his family is, his upbringing was, at times, strained. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it’s not just pop culture that made him want to immigrate here. He also wanted to leave India altogether. As close as his family is, his upbringing was, at times, strained. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It was not pleasant, you can say. Like, there is this thing called caste system in India. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It was not pleasant, you can say. Like, there is this thing called caste system in India. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s caste system is thousands of years old. Historically, castes were tied to specific occupations. The higher castes were priests and warriors and rulers. The middle caste were merchants and skilled artisans. The lower caste did farm work or were servants. And then, there were people who were considered “untouchable” — and they faced the most discrimination, even today. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s caste system is thousands of years old. Historically, castes were tied to specific occupations. The higher castes were priests and warriors and rulers. The middle caste were merchants and skilled artisans. The lower caste did farm work or were servants. And then, there were people who were considered “untouchable” — and they faced the most discrimination, even today. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>To make up for generations of discrimination and economic inequality, the Indian government has a series of programs called “reservation.” It’s kind of like affirmative action — with strict quotas. A certain percentage of government jobs and public university spots are reserved for members of lower castes. The reservation system is very controversial in India, because it’s not based on current financial status. It’s based purely on caste, which is fixed at birth. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>To make up for generations of discrimination and economic inequality, the Indian government has a series of programs called “reservation.” It’s kind of like affirmative action — with strict quotas. A certain percentage of government jobs and public university spots are reserved for members of lower castes. The reservation system is very controversial in India, because it’s not based on current financial status. It’s based purely on caste, which is fixed at birth. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You know, like, reservation and caste system were introduced to uplift the lower class — uplift the backward people. It started as a good idea. You know, my family has decent money, like — okay-okay money — we are not very rich. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You know, like, reservation and caste system were introduced to uplift the lower class — uplift the backward people. It started as a good idea. You know, my family has decent money, like — okay-okay money — we are not very rich. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam’s ancestors were jewelers and fell into that middle tier of merchants and artisans. They’ve been solidly middle-class for generations. His family could not have afforded private school, so he had to compete for one of the very limited spots at his public university. There’s a key tension here between caste and class. Sam doesn’t come from a ton of money. He doesn’t have the same resources and safety net that the upper echelon of Indian society has. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam’s ancestors were jewelers and fell into that middle tier of merchants and artisans. They’ve been solidly middle-class for generations. His family could not have afforded private school, so he had to compete for one of the very limited spots at his public university. There’s a key tension here between caste and class. Sam doesn’t come from a ton of money. He doesn’t have the same resources and safety net that the upper echelon of Indian society has. \u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The reservation system was designed to level the playing field. While it uplifts the most oppressed classes, Sam feels like it leaves the middle class behind. He said his own opportunities in India are limited — and that there’s no upward mobility for him. Becoming a doctor was never his great life goal… but, it’s a stable career that offers a considerably better salary than other jobs in India. And, there’s demand for doctors all over the world — he sees it as a ticket out of the caste system. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The reservation system was designed to level the playing field. While it uplifts the most oppressed classes, Sam feels like it leaves the middle class behind. He said his own opportunities in India are limited — and that there’s no upward mobility for him. Becoming a doctor was never his great life goal… but, it’s a stable career that offers a considerably better salary than other jobs in India. And, there’s demand for doctors all over the world — he sees it as a ticket out of the caste system. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sam had his sights set on America. He saw it as a land of meritocracy and Grand Theft Auto. But while his parents helped him with tuition and licensing exam fees, he wanted to travel. He needed to buy his protein powder so that he could, as he put it, “get shredded.” And he wanted save up for his potential move to the U.S. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sam had his sights set on America. He saw it as a land of meritocracy and Grand Theft Auto. But while his parents helped him with tuition and licensing exam fees, he wanted to travel. He needed to buy his protein powder so that he could, as he put it, “get shredded.” And he wanted save up for his potential move to the U.S. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, he needed money. The problem? He’s in his last year of a five-and-a-half year medical program — and when he isn’t in class or working his medical internship, he’s studying for this big entrance exam to get into a post-grad medical specialty program. Plus, the job market in India sucks. Sam said that most entry-level, part-time jobs that college students typically get pay like, a dollar an hour. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, he needed money. The problem? He’s in his last year of a five-and-a-half year medical program — and when he isn’t in class or working his medical internship, he’s studying for this big entrance exam to get into a post-grad medical specialty program. Plus, the job market in India sucks. Sam said that most entry-level, part-time jobs that college students typically get pay like, a dollar an hour. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If you work four hours per day for a whole month, you can hardly earn like, $100 for a month. And like, I didn’t want to, you know, put so much effort for so little cash. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> And, Sam is a product of his generation. It’s not just his gym rat tendencies. It’s what made his story so compelling to Ej. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> And, Sam is a product of his generation. It’s not just his gym rat tendencies. It’s what made his story so compelling to Ej. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Sam is, I think, pretty representative of Gen Z males, in that there’s very much an emphasis on like, online side hustles. There were a lot of things that he tried to do to make money. He was doing online fitness coaching for a while, he was doing some of that like, drop shipping nonsense that all the Gen Z boys do. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Sam is, I think, pretty representative of Gen Z males, in that there’s very much an emphasis on like, online side hustles. There were a lot of things that he tried to do to make money. He was doing online fitness coaching for a while, he was doing some of that like, drop shipping nonsense that all the Gen Z boys do. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He tutored and sold notes and study guides for the U.S. medical licensing exam, which he already passed. He once saw Instagram ads about monetizing AI clips, so he started making AI Roblox videos for YouTube shorts. He was kind of just… chasing side hustles until something stuck. Then, while scrolling through Instagram, he came across this influencer. She was gorgeous, but Sam could tell she was AI-generated. And yet, she had a huge audience — all from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He tutored and sold notes and study guides for the U.S. medical licensing exam, which he already passed. He once saw Instagram ads about monetizing AI clips, so he started making AI Roblox videos for YouTube shorts. He was kind of just… chasing side hustles until something stuck. Then, while scrolling through Instagram, he came across this influencer. She was gorgeous, but Sam could tell she was AI-generated. And yet, she had a huge audience — all from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>She uploads pictures with Donald Trump. She’s a blonde military girl that uploads pictures with Donald Trump — and like, she had like, thousands and millions of likes, thousands of followers, so I wanted to create that. Like, Donald Trump — everyone knows him, everyone knows what he is doing, and you know, even like, me and my friends who follow American politics, we used to joke around MAGA people that they are so dumb, like they don’t understand anything… and like how can someone support Donald Trump? Like, after all that he’s doing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>She uploads pictures with Donald Trump. She’s a blonde military girl that uploads pictures with Donald Trump — and like, she had like, thousands and millions of likes, thousands of followers, so I wanted to create that. Like, Donald Trump — everyone knows him, everyone knows what he is doing, and you know, even like, me and my friends who follow American politics, we used to joke around MAGA people that they are so dumb, like they don’t understand anything… and like how can someone support Donald Trump? Like, after all that he’s doing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He hatched a plan: make a hot AI girl, go viral, and get rich. He opened Google’s AI image generator, also known as Nano Banana Pro. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He hatched a plan: make a hot AI girl, go viral, and get rich. He opened Google’s AI image generator, also known as Nano Banana Pro. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I use a lot of Gemini. I never use ChatGPT — I am a Gemini guy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I use a lot of Gemini. I never use ChatGPT — I am a Gemini guy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam initially tried to make the Indian version of the blonde military girl influencer, but it didn’t work out. For one, he said that because mainstream AI models are trained on American culture, Gemini struggled to generate a realistic-looking Indian woman. The hot Indian girl he was trying to create just looked… fake. And the second issue: he realized that Indian men just don’t spend money the way American men do. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam initially tried to make the Indian version of the blonde military girl influencer, but it didn’t work out. For one, he said that because mainstream AI models are trained on American culture, Gemini struggled to generate a realistic-looking Indian woman. The hot Indian girl he was trying to create just looked… fake. And the second issue: he realized that Indian men just don’t spend money the way American men do. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> And like USA, there is big tipping culture — people, you know, easily pay- they are more willing to pay. That’s why I changed it to an American influencer. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> And like USA, there is big tipping culture — people, you know, easily pay- they are more willing to pay. That’s why I changed it to an American influencer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But first, he had to decide what this American influencer would be like. Sam turned to Gemini, which told him the influencer shouldn’t just be a “pretty girl.” She needed depth. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But first, he had to decide what this American influencer would be like. Sam turned to Gemini, which told him the influencer shouldn’t just be a “pretty girl.” She needed depth. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You shouldn’t create- just create a beautiful women with no personality. You want people to connect with your Instagram model — then they will be connected with you, then they will buy your services, etcetera. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You shouldn’t create- just create a beautiful women with no personality. You want people to connect with your Instagram model — then they will be connected with you, then they will buy your services, etcetera. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam had a new plan: create a hot blonde AI girl, go viral, and get rich. She would appeal to the typical American man — so that Sam could cash in on those sweet American tips. And she wouldn’t just look the part, she would have the personality of an all-American girl. Through TV shows, video games, and following American politics, he was familiar enough with American culture to pull it off. With a couple of curated prompts, he had a handful of images to start her account. The last thing he needed was a name. And that came from Gemini too: Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam had a new plan: create a hot blonde AI girl, go viral, and get rich. She would appeal to the typical American man — so that Sam could cash in on those sweet American tips. And she wouldn’t just look the part, she would have the personality of an all-American girl. Through TV shows, video games, and following American politics, he was familiar enough with American culture to pull it off. With a couple of curated prompts, he had a handful of images to start her account. The last thing he needed was a name. And that came from Gemini too: Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey guys, just enjoying the sun by the pool today. This feels so good. I’m gonna dip my toes in, so refreshing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey guys, just enjoying the sun by the pool today. This feels so good. I’m gonna dip my toes in, so refreshing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily took off — thousands of followers in just a few weeks. Sam had unlocked the formula to reach a very specific group of American men. So, how did he do it? We’re getting into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going! You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break, Emily Hart goes MAGA. Stick around. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily took off — thousands of followers in just a few weeks. Sam had unlocked the formula to reach a very specific group of American men. So, how did he do it? We’re getting into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going! You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break, Emily Hart goes MAGA. Stick around. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: Becoming Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: Becoming Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>At Gemini’s suggestion, Sam created a profile for Emily Hart, a blonde nurse from Buffalo who lives in New York City. It was pretty generic at first. He started posting as Emily in January, and immediately started getting attention… from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>At Gemini’s suggestion, Sam created a profile for Emily Hart, a blonde nurse from Buffalo who lives in New York City. It was pretty generic at first. He started posting as Emily in January, and immediately started getting attention… from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Once I created it, like, initially four or five DMs, all the DMs I got, was from, you can say, old 60, 70-year-old, MAGA people like, pro-MAGA, pro-right — like, those. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Once I created it, like, initially four or five DMs, all the DMs I got, was from, you can say, old 60, 70-year-old, MAGA people like, pro-MAGA, pro-right — like, those. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And Gemini was apparently like, “You need to make a MAGA girl. You need to like a hot MAGA in a bikini, like, that’s gold.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And Gemini was apparently like, “You need to make a MAGA girl. You need to like a hot MAGA in a bikini, like, that’s gold.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He started posting images of Emily ice-fishing, drinking beer, and sexily firing rounds at the shooting range. He wrote captions like: \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He started posting images of Emily ice-fishing, drinking beer, and sexily firing rounds at the shooting range. He wrote captions like: \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>If you want a reason to unfollow? Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>If you want a reason to unfollow? Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And:\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>POV: you were assigned intelligent at birth, but you identify as a liberal. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>POV: you were assigned intelligent at birth, but you identify as a liberal. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Followed by a clown emoji.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Followed by a clown emoji.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He approached it as a craft, and he really spent a lot of time trying to perfect his craft on Gemini —because the space was so saturated, that he really needed a gimmick or a niche to kind of corner in order to be successful. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He approached it as a craft, and he really spent a lot of time trying to perfect his craft on Gemini —because the space was so saturated, that he really needed a gimmick or a niche to kind of corner in order to be successful. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It took a couple of weeks of consistent posting, but the payoff was real. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It took me three weeks to get initial 1,000 subscribers. And from there, in one week, I had like 14,000-15,000 subscribers, 20 million views and like, all that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It took me three weeks to get initial 1,000 subscribers. And from there, in one week, I had like 14,000-15,000 subscribers, 20 million views and like, all that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It helped that Emily’s audience wasn’t the most tech savvy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It helped that Emily’s audience wasn’t the most tech savvy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I want to be clear that Gemini did not explicitly say this, but I do think that that audience is probably less technologically well-versed than progressives are, and therefore more gullible and more prone to falling toward this kind of scheme. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I want to be clear that Gemini did not explicitly say this, but I do think that that audience is probably less technologically well-versed than progressives are, and therefore more gullible and more prone to falling toward this kind of scheme. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam echoed this… more strongly. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but — like, what I have observed, like, the liberals and the left-wing people, they are usually smart. They are — you know, they have basic common sense. And you know, the MAGA people are like, super dumb people. I should not say that, but they are like — you can say they are not that aware on, you can say, technology. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but — like, what I have observed, like, the liberals and the left-wing people, they are usually smart. They are — you know, they have basic common sense. And you know, the MAGA people are like, super dumb people. I should not say that, but they are like — you can say they are not that aware on, you can say, technology. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That’s not to say that there aren’t easily duped liberals. I do think that internet MAGA has a much, much stronger digital aesthetic than progressives do, for sure. There’s an iconography attached to it — and just seeing like, a blonde white girl wearing an American flag bikini while ice fishing, I mean, how much more MAGA can you get? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That’s not to say that there aren’t easily duped liberals. I do think that internet MAGA has a much, much stronger digital aesthetic than progressives do, for sure. There’s an iconography attached to it — and just seeing like, a blonde white girl wearing an American flag bikini while ice fishing, I mean, how much more MAGA can you get? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s very strong visual political identity resonated with her followers. Maybe that’s why they were less likely to be suspicious of her — the bright red MAGA hat she often wore also helped obscure some of the inconsistencies in her post. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>AI really, you know, messes up the hair also. So, to get around that, I used to include a MAGA cap in like, every image I make. So basically, like, I used to include accessories like sunglasses and MAGA cap to, you know, get two different… like, make it more believable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>AI really, you know, messes up the hair also. So, to get around that, I used to include a MAGA cap in like, every image I make. So basically, like, I used to include accessories like sunglasses and MAGA cap to, you know, get two different… like, make it more believable. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so it wasn’t even just, like, to appeal to MAGA. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so it wasn’t even just, like, to appeal to MAGA. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, it was — you know, it was beneficial in both ways. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, it was — you know, it was beneficial in both ways. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Or, maybe they didn’t suspect anything because she was hot, and that was disarming enough. Because, there were definitely red flags in Emily’s content. Video generation was less convincing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Or, maybe they didn’t suspect anything because she was hot, and that was disarming enough. Because, there were definitely red flags in Emily’s content. Video generation was less convincing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey, handsome. I just got back to my tiny apartment after a 12-hour shift at Bellevue. NYC is just so loud tonight, but honestly? All I can think about is how much I missed you. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey, handsome. I just got back to my tiny apartment after a 12-hour shift at Bellevue. NYC is just so loud tonight, but honestly? All I can think about is how much I missed you. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So Sam usually stuck to images — but even then, he said Gemini couldn’t quite get the eyes right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So Sam usually stuck to images — but even then, he said Gemini couldn’t quite get the eyes right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, you can say that it’s- it might not be real — there is something wrong with the picture. So you know what I used to do? Like, I used include sunglasses in every picture — every picture, I used to include sunglasses. Like, she’s wearing black sunglasses everywhere. Like she is ice-fishing, she is wearing sunglasses, like she’s inside her home, she’s wearing sunglasses. Even at night, she’s wearing sunglasses. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, you can say that it’s- it might not be real — there is something wrong with the picture. So you know what I used to do? Like, I used include sunglasses in every picture — every picture, I used to include sunglasses. Like, she’s wearing black sunglasses everywhere. Like she is ice-fishing, she is wearing sunglasses, like she’s inside her home, she’s wearing sunglasses. Even at night, she’s wearing sunglasses. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam studied up on MAGA ideology and how Trump supporters interact online. Every day, he’d spend 30 minutes to an hour creating content that was pro-Second Amendment, anti-immigrant, and anti-abortion. The more divisive the caption, the more engagement he got as Emily. He didn’t believe in any of this, but he knew what would get attention. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam studied up on MAGA ideology and how Trump supporters interact online. Every day, he’d spend 30 minutes to an hour creating content that was pro-Second Amendment, anti-immigrant, and anti-abortion. The more divisive the caption, the more engagement he got as Emily. He didn’t believe in any of this, but he knew what would get attention. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Weirdly, it was a scam that only somebody who was really interested in American culture could have pulled off, I think. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Weirdly, it was a scam that only somebody who was really interested in American culture could have pulled off, I think. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam has a real knack for engagement bait: engineering content that tricks social media algorithms to boost a post. Like, he was inspired by this TikTok trend. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam has a real knack for engagement bait: engineering content that tricks social media algorithms to boost a post. Like, he was inspired by this TikTok trend. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There was a trend — on this song, like, it was around two years ago and it was this song — “I’m stylish, big top, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There was a trend — on this song, like, it was around two years ago and it was this song — “I’m stylish, big top, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of TikTok trend video]: \u003c/strong>Bitch I’m stylish, black talk, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish. Watch on my wrist but I want that…\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of TikTok trend video]: \u003c/strong>Bitch I’m stylish, black talk, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish. Watch on my wrist but I want that…\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The videos usually started with someone getting ready, in a frumpy get-up — and, when the beat dropped, it would cut to them, fully glammed up. Sam was inspired by that split-second transition on the beat. So, using other songs, he put his own spin on it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The videos usually started with someone getting ready, in a frumpy get-up — and, when the beat dropped, it would cut to them, fully glammed up. Sam was inspired by that split-second transition on the beat. So, using other songs, he put his own spin on it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I used to upload like, you can say, a catfish type of reel. There was like, four to six seconds reel of Emily Hart, a picture with her like, normal clothes. And then I used a sneak-in, like, for a millisecond, a picture of her in a swimsuit, you can say… sort of, like, a decent word — a swimsuit. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I used to upload like, you can say, a catfish type of reel. There was like, four to six seconds reel of Emily Hart, a picture with her like, normal clothes. And then I used a sneak-in, like, for a millisecond, a picture of her in a swimsuit, you can say… sort of, like, a decent word — a swimsuit. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Driven by horny curiosity, viewers would try to pause the video in time to see the picture. And if they didn’t catch it in time, they’d have to play the video again. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Driven by horny curiosity, viewers would try to pause the video in time to see the picture. And if they didn’t catch it in time, they’d have to play the video again. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And for that, they used to again and again, see multiple times, like four, five times, six times. So that Instagram gets the signal that this reel is so good that people are viewing it five to six times, so promote it. So normally I used to get like 200, 300 views, and like, these type of views used to get like, 10,000, 50,000, 25,000 views. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And for that, they used to again and again, see multiple times, like four, five times, six times. So that Instagram gets the signal that this reel is so good that people are viewing it five to six times, so promote it. So normally I used to get like 200, 300 views, and like, these type of views used to get like, 10,000, 50,000, 25,000 views. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was a hit. Within a few weeks, she had over 15,000 followers on Instagram — which is a fraction of what the most popular real influencers have, but to build this following in such a short time period with such minimal effort? Real influencers grind for months to build that. Sam felt like he had unlocked something. His MAGA influencer was going strong, but he wondered if there was an untapped market out there. So… he tried to recreate the magic of Emily Hart, but this time for a liberal audience. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was a hit. Within a few weeks, she had over 15,000 followers on Instagram — which is a fraction of what the most popular real influencers have, but to build this following in such a short time period with such minimal effort? Real influencers grind for months to build that. Sam felt like he had unlocked something. His MAGA influencer was going strong, but he wondered if there was an untapped market out there. So… he tried to recreate the magic of Emily Hart, but this time for a liberal audience. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was very stereotypical. I mean, less aggressively so than Emily Hart, but it was like a girl with dyed red hair and a nose ring who would like post cute selfies with a coffee cup in Bushwick. You know, it was very generic. It was clear that she wasn’t as fully fleshed out as Emily Hart was. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was very stereotypical. I mean, less aggressively so than Emily Hart, but it was like a girl with dyed red hair and a nose ring who would like post cute selfies with a coffee cup in Bushwick. You know, it was very generic. It was clear that she wasn’t as fully fleshed out as Emily Hart was. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, it was a complete flop because people used to know that it’s an AI flop and they like, usually didn’t interact with it, like, they didn’t comment. They were like, “This is AI slop, this is trash, we don’t have time,” something like that. And like, the MAGA people were like crazy — “Are you single? Can I message you?” Something like that. They were, you can say, a little more lusty, you can say. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, it was a complete flop because people used to know that it’s an AI flop and they like, usually didn’t interact with it, like, they didn’t comment. They were like, “This is AI slop, this is trash, we don’t have time,” something like that. And like, the MAGA people were like crazy — “Are you single? Can I message you?” Something like that. They were, you can say, a little more lusty, you can say. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, it was fine. Sam had his hands full with Emily, anyway. In the early days, he got a real kick out of duping conservative men who had no idea they were talking to a 22-year-old Indian guy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, it was fine. Sam had his hands full with Emily, anyway. In the early days, he got a real kick out of duping conservative men who had no idea they were talking to a 22-year-old Indian guy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They were super racist. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They were super racist. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>When he created Emily’s Facebook profile, he accidentally set his location to New Delhi. A random man messaged the profile. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>When he created Emily’s Facebook profile, he accidentally set his location to New Delhi. A random man messaged the profile. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So, like, he went through my Facebook profile, he went through that, and he saw New Delhi. And he was like, “Have you been to India?” And I didn’t even say anything. And he used to like, “India is not a good place. It’s not safe for women. You shouldn’t have gone there.” And you know, the racist comments. And I didn’t talk to him. Like, he said, “Hi,” I said, “Hello.” Okay — then he started all this. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So, like, he went through my Facebook profile, he went through that, and he saw New Delhi. And he was like, “Have you been to India?” And I didn’t even say anything. And he used to like, “India is not a good place. It’s not safe for women. You shouldn’t have gone there.” And you know, the racist comments. And I didn’t talk to him. Like, he said, “Hi,” I said, “Hello.” Okay — then he started all this. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it never occurred to him that he could be just talking to someone who was Indian? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it never occurred to him that he could be just talking to someone who was Indian? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>No. It was a little fun like, you know, like, making a fool of such people. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>No. It was a little fun like, you know, like, making a fool of such people. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But this wasn’t just for fun. The entire reason he got into this was to make some cash. So, how did he monetize Emily Hart? That’s a new tab: why was Emily Hart so successful? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But this wasn’t just for fun. The entire reason he got into this was to make some cash. So, how did he monetize Emily Hart? That’s a new tab: why was Emily Hart so successful? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Instagram is very strict about nudity and adult content. So, like many real human sex workers, Emily’s Instagram account was a vehicle to drive engagement to another site: Fanvue. The most popular subscription platform for adult content is OnlyFans. Using AI tools to edit content and manage messages is allowed, but the site totally bans “synthetic personas” — fully AI-generated characters like Emily Hart. In fact, a lot of adult subscription sites do. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Instagram is very strict about nudity and adult content. So, like many real human sex workers, Emily’s Instagram account was a vehicle to drive engagement to another site: Fanvue. The most popular subscription platform for adult content is OnlyFans. Using AI tools to edit content and manage messages is allowed, but the site totally bans “synthetic personas” — fully AI-generated characters like Emily Hart. In fact, a lot of adult subscription sites do. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Instead, Sam used Fanvue, which is where a lot AI influencers sell nudes. Google’s Gemini blocks the generation of explicit content, and although there are ways to get around it, Sam’s hustle was all about doing the least amount of work for the most amount of money. So, he used Grok. He generated a couple nudes, uploaded them to Fanvue, set a subscription fee, and locked the juiciest content behind a paywall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Instead, Sam used Fanvue, which is where a lot AI influencers sell nudes. Google’s Gemini blocks the generation of explicit content, and although there are ways to get around it, Sam’s hustle was all about doing the least amount of work for the most amount of money. So, he used Grok. He generated a couple nudes, uploaded them to Fanvue, set a subscription fee, and locked the juiciest content behind a paywall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then… the cash started rolling in. Sam was blown away at how easily Americans spent money. He couldn’t believe they were tipping him — or really, Emily — just to respond to their messages. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then… the cash started rolling in. Sam was blown away at how easily Americans spent money. He couldn’t believe they were tipping him — or really, Emily — just to respond to their messages. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People used to hugely tip. I don’t know why people tip in USA — like, I am 22 years old, I have never in my life once seen someone tipping in India. And like, people were like, crazy, they used to tip me $20, $10, and I was thinking like, “Why people are sending me extra money? I dont know.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People used to hugely tip. I don’t know why people tip in USA — like, I am 22 years old, I have never in my life once seen someone tipping in India. And like, people were like, crazy, they used to tip me $20, $10, and I was thinking like, “Why people are sending me extra money? I dont know.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He made a few thousand dollars within days of starting the account. Again, human adult content creators grind for years to get this kind of audience… and to generate anything close to this amount of revenue. What was it about Emily that made her so popular? Ej has a theory. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He made a few thousand dollars within days of starting the account. Again, human adult content creators grind for years to get this kind of audience… and to generate anything close to this amount of revenue. What was it about Emily that made her so popular? Ej has a theory. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think that probably at the time that Sam was doing this, the space was a little less saturated, so there was less competition. And, I think, probably the most major contributor to this is the fact that there’s a really strong element of self-delusion at play here, right? In order to buy into Emily Hart’s whole persona, you not only have to believe that this woman exists, you have to be believe that she is a hot 24-year-old girl who exists and believes exactly the same things as you do — and validates every single opinion you have. I think these men got off to that probably more than anything. And I think that’s very powerful for the MAGA sect. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think that probably at the time that Sam was doing this, the space was a little less saturated, so there was less competition. And, I think, probably the most major contributor to this is the fact that there’s a really strong element of self-delusion at play here, right? In order to buy into Emily Hart’s whole persona, you not only have to believe that this woman exists, you have to be believe that she is a hot 24-year-old girl who exists and believes exactly the same things as you do — and validates every single opinion you have. I think these men got off to that probably more than anything. And I think that’s very powerful for the MAGA sect. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>There are real adult content creators who are also conservative. Ej pointed to Brandi Love, who’s known for making MILF porn and also being a vocal Trump supporter. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>There are real adult content creators who are also conservative. Ej pointed to Brandi Love, who’s known for making MILF porn and also being a vocal Trump supporter. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think what differentiates Emily from someone like Brandi, is Brandi does not make it integral to her persona, right? She very rarely posts about politics, and that’s Emily’s entire brand is combining politics with sex. With the conservative adult creators, the politics are kind of incidental to the main product, which is the sex. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think what differentiates Emily from someone like Brandi, is Brandi does not make it integral to her persona, right? She very rarely posts about politics, and that’s Emily’s entire brand is combining politics with sex. With the conservative adult creators, the politics are kind of incidental to the main product, which is the sex. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam knew he was playing into some kind of fantasy, and soon after starting the Fanvue account, started feeling really bad about it. He didn’t like the idea of deceiving anyone for money. Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI, but Sam wasn’t making money there. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam knew he was playing into some kind of fantasy, and soon after starting the Fanvue account, started feeling really bad about it. He didn’t like the idea of deceiving anyone for money. Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI, but Sam wasn’t making money there. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If someone paid for my Fanvue, I used to disclose it — like, you should know this, before spending like, too much money. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If someone paid for my Fanvue, I used to disclose it — like, you should know this, before spending like, too much money. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And when subscribers sent him additional tips on Fanvue, he’d actually message them back. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And when subscribers sent him additional tips on Fanvue, he’d actually message them back. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, I used to say to them — “That you should know, I’m artificially generated.”. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, I used to say to them — “That you should know, I’m artificially generated.”. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The wild thing is, the subscribers didn’t seem to care at all — even when Sam reminded them that the girl they were paying wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The wild thing is, the subscribers didn’t seem to care at all — even when Sam reminded them that the girl they were paying wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, two or three people messaged me, like, “We think that you are AI-generated, but we love the reels you are making. You are supporting Trump, you are supporting the Republicans, so we will support you. We don’t care.” So, many were like that. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, two or three people messaged me, like, “We think that you are AI-generated, but we love the reels you are making. You are supporting Trump, you are supporting the Republicans, so we will support you. We don’t care.” So, many were like that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really don’t think that the majority of these men care if the woman on the other side of the screen is fake — and that’s kind of the scariest part to me, because I think that that principle applies to AI-generated content on the internet in general. I don’t think people care if something is real or fake anymore. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really don’t think that the majority of these men care if the woman on the other side of the screen is fake — and that’s kind of the scariest part to me, because I think that that principle applies to AI-generated content on the internet in general. I don’t think people care if something is real or fake anymore. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>What would drive Emily Hart subscribers to continue following her, subscribing to her exclusive content, and even paying to DM her if they knew she wasn’t really a hot 24-year-old, pickup truck-driving, ice-fishing nurse in New York City? They knew the pictures they were liking and saving — among other things — were generated using AI. At that point, why continue following her? Why not just chat with an AI girlfriend on Character AI or something? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>What would drive Emily Hart subscribers to continue following her, subscribing to her exclusive content, and even paying to DM her if they knew she wasn’t really a hot 24-year-old, pickup truck-driving, ice-fishing nurse in New York City? They knew the pictures they were liking and saving — among other things — were generated using AI. At that point, why continue following her? Why not just chat with an AI girlfriend on Character AI or something? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really think it comes down to this idea of intimacy, which is the whole reason why OnlyFans blew up in the first place. Like, the whole premise of OnlyFans is that men are directly connecting with the objects of their fantasies. And, the level of intimacy that is provided by that exchange goes beyond sex, it goes beyond getting off. It really is about human connection. So I think that a lot of the men who paid for Emily Hart’s content were sort of willing to suspend their disbelief in exchange for that element of intimacy, of connection, of human interaction that they were trying to convince themselves that they were getting. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really think it comes down to this idea of intimacy, which is the whole reason why OnlyFans blew up in the first place. Like, the whole premise of OnlyFans is that men are directly connecting with the objects of their fantasies. And, the level of intimacy that is provided by that exchange goes beyond sex, it goes beyond getting off. It really is about human connection. So I think that a lot of the men who paid for Emily Hart’s content were sort of willing to suspend their disbelief in exchange for that element of intimacy, of connection, of human interaction that they were trying to convince themselves that they were getting. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was making way more money than he ever could have made working a part-time job during school. Every day, he generates some more Emily content and come up with a racist, xenophobic caption that he knew would get attention. He kept an eye on all the viral trends that other hot girls, AI or not, were doing on Instagram and TikTok. Emily’s fans weren’t just American either. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was making way more money than he ever could have made working a part-time job during school. Every day, he generates some more Emily content and come up with a racist, xenophobic caption that he knew would get attention. He kept an eye on all the viral trends that other hot girls, AI or not, were doing on Instagram and TikTok. Emily’s fans weren’t just American either. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I got a guy from Germany, I got a guy from Switzerland, like, many different people. Like, on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like, my DM was filled, every day I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I got a guy from Germany, I got a guy from Switzerland, like, many different people. Like, on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like, my DM was filled, every day I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam ignored most of the Instagram messages, but made sure that Fanvue subscribers got a response, because they had to pay to unlock those. The site has an AI feature that generates messages based on previous chats, so he could automate responses. Although he didn’t have to respond to subscribers himself, he did have to see what they sent back. And they were getting a little too comfortable in Emily’s DMs. That’s a whole new tab: Emily Hart’s Simp Army. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam ignored most of the Instagram messages, but made sure that Fanvue subscribers got a response, because they had to pay to unlock those. The site has an AI feature that generates messages based on previous chats, so he could automate responses. Although he didn’t have to respond to subscribers himself, he did have to see what they sent back. And they were getting a little too comfortable in Emily’s DMs. That’s a whole new tab: Emily Hart’s Simp Army. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On the upside? Sam made a good amount of money as Emily Hart. The downside? He was dealing with some real creeps. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I can’t even say what people were sending me to Instagram, like, it’s inappropriate. But like, people are sending inappropriate images, inappropriate messages. “Hey, are you single? What’s up? Where do you live?” Like, these are general. But like, some people were like, so creepy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I can’t even say what people were sending me to Instagram, like, it’s inappropriate. But like, people are sending inappropriate images, inappropriate messages. “Hey, are you single? What’s up? Where do you live?” Like, these are general. But like, some people were like, so creepy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Navigating the internet as Emily was an eye-opening experience for Sam. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My friends don’t even message me that much. When I started, I used to get like, 10-15 messages, easily. Like, so much attention. And I was thinking like, “Do pretty women get so much attention?” Like, I was like, surprised. But it’s not good kind of attention — it’s not the kind of attention people want. It’s super disgusting. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My friends don’t even message me that much. When I started, I used to get like, 10-15 messages, easily. Like, so much attention. And I was thinking like, “Do pretty women get so much attention?” Like, I was like, surprised. But it’s not good kind of attention — it’s not the kind of attention people want. It’s super disgusting. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As Emily Hart — patriot and rising Fanvue star —Sam experienced what women haven’t subjected to since the birth of texting: unsolicited dick pics. He was appalled. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As Emily Hart — patriot and rising Fanvue star —Sam experienced what women haven’t subjected to since the birth of texting: unsolicited dick pics. He was appalled. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image. Like, it was super weird, super creepy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image. Like, it was super weird, super creepy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He learned to stop checking Emily Hart’s Instagram messages, but he couldn’t ignore the ones on Fanvue, because that’s where he was making money. One guy on Fanvue sent him 50 bucks, and then to accompany the tip, the subscriber attached a video of himself, naked, humping a pillow that propped up a tablet with Emily’s nude. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He learned to stop checking Emily Hart’s Instagram messages, but he couldn’t ignore the ones on Fanvue, because that’s where he was making money. One guy on Fanvue sent him 50 bucks, and then to accompany the tip, the subscriber attached a video of himself, naked, humping a pillow that propped up a tablet with Emily’s nude. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I mean, these guys were sending him cum tributes, like they were ejaculating on photos of Emily Hart, or like sending videos of themselves masturbating on Emily Hart’s photo — and he would have to see this, like, all the time. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I mean, these guys were sending him cum tributes, like they were ejaculating on photos of Emily Hart, or like sending videos of themselves masturbating on Emily Hart’s photo — and he would have to see this, like, all the time. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then, there was the emotional toll, too. The unsolicited videos were gross, but they were nothing compared to the trauma-dumping that Emily’s subscribers did in her DMs. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then, there was the emotional toll, too. The unsolicited videos were gross, but they were nothing compared to the trauma-dumping that Emily’s subscribers did in her DMs. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He would get messages all the time from people who would buy her videos and buy her exclusive content — and they would be like, “Are you real or are you AI?” But then they would go on and talk about their days, or talk about how lonely they were, how much they hated their wives. I found Sam very thoughtful and self-reflective. I think that he felt guilty about deceiving them, honestly. They would share things with him sometimes that went beyond the typical OnlyFans model-subscriber relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He would get messages all the time from people who would buy her videos and buy her exclusive content — and they would be like, “Are you real or are you AI?” But then they would go on and talk about their days, or talk about how lonely they were, how much they hated their wives. I found Sam very thoughtful and self-reflective. I think that he felt guilty about deceiving them, honestly. They would share things with him sometimes that went beyond the typical OnlyFans model-subscriber relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Just going back to that idea of intimacy and human connection, like they would talk about how terrible their marriages were and they hadn’t slept in the same bed as and their wives in years and how they recently lost a parent or a beloved family member. When there was a theoretical audience of dumb MAGA guys paying for this content, I think he was more comfortable with that than with engaging with them all on an individual level and being like, “Oh, these are real people with real problems.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Just going back to that idea of intimacy and human connection, like they would talk about how terrible their marriages were and they hadn’t slept in the same bed as and their wives in years and how they recently lost a parent or a beloved family member. When there was a theoretical audience of dumb MAGA guys paying for this content, I think he was more comfortable with that than with engaging with them all on an individual level and being like, “Oh, these are real people with real problems.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The AI MAGA hot girl venture was supposed to be easy cash. And the fact that he was tricking Americans, whose politics he fundamentally disagreed with — who would probably be horrified to find out they were sending cum tributes to a 22-year-old Indian guy — felt like poetic justice. But the grift… stoped being fun. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The AI MAGA hot girl venture was supposed to be easy cash. And the fact that he was tricking Americans, whose politics he fundamentally disagreed with — who would probably be horrified to find out they were sending cum tributes to a 22-year-old Indian guy — felt like poetic justice. But the grift… stoped being fun. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it got too intense. I think he got burnt out by it very fast. He wasn’t doing it for very long. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it got too intense. I think he got burnt out by it very fast. He wasn’t doing it for very long. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then the Instagram ban started. The scammer accusations followed. Emily Hart, AKA Sam, was under fire. That’s it for part one of the story, but don’t worry. We’re not finished with this deep dive yet. Next week, we’re getting into the rest of the Emily Hart saga, the scammer debate, and what happened with Sam’s lifelong dream of moving to America. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then the Instagram ban started. The scammer accusations followed. Emily Hart, AKA Sam, was under fire. That’s it for part one of the story, but don’t worry. We’re not finished with this deep dive yet. Next week, we’re getting into the rest of the Emily Hart saga, the scammer debate, and what happened with Sam’s lifelong dream of moving to America. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. And if you’re dying to open more tabs before part two drops next week, we’ll link to some further reading in our show notes. We’re leaving these tabs open for now. So, come back for the rest of the story. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. And if you’re dying to open more tabs before part two drops next week, we’ll link to some further reading in our show notes. We’re leaving these tabs open for now. So, come back for the rest of the story. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited and audio engineered by Chris Egusa. Production help from our intern, Lauren Yoon. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his White Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This episode includes AI-generated clips of Emily Hart, courtesy of Sam. We also used a clip of the song “Billie Eilish” by Armani White. Thanks for listening. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But you will have to, uh — for the normies — explain what cum tributes are. \u003cem>[Laughs].\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Emily Hart was a pickup-driving, Trump-supporting blonde bombshell who frequently posted photos on Instagram along with captions about “deporting illegals.” Within a few weeks she gained thousands of followers. It was like she was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere — because she was. A 22-year-old medical student in India who goes by “Sam” is the person behind Emily Hart, and he shepherded her to viral fame with a combination of right-wing engagement baiting and AI assistance. Reporter Ej Dickson, who wrote about Sam and Emily Hart for WIRED, describes how he was able to grift so many conservative men. And Sam himself explains how something that began as a fun side-hustle took a disturbing turn.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8396912565\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/author/ej-dickson/\">Ej Dickson\u003c/a>, senior culture writer at\u003cem>Wired\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>“Sam,” creator of AI MAGA Influencer Emily Hart\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/\">This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men \u003c/a> — Ej Dickson, \u003cem>Wired\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/ai-generated-influencers-a-new-wave-of-cultural-exploitation-248956\">AI‑generated influencers: A new wave of cultural exploitation\u003c/a> — Ateqah Khaki & Vinita Srivastava, \u003cem>The Conversation\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-brandi-love-the-pro-trump-porn-star-who-writes-for-the-federalist/\">Meet Brandi Love, the Pro-Trump Porn Star Who Writes for The Federalist\u003c/a> — Marlow Stern, \u003cem>The Daily Beast \u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://theworld.org/stories/2026/06/19/challenges-under-indias-university-reservation-system\">Challenges under India’s university reservation system \u003c/a> — Namrata Kolachalam, \u003cem>The World \u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Follow us on \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Instagram\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">TikTok\u003c/a>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cem>\u003cem>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Hi Tabby Cats, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tabs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends — post about it. You too, can be part of our volunteer clipping army. We can’t let the looksmaxxers win the clip wars. Okay, let’s get to the show. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just a note, this episode contains some graphic descriptions of sexual content, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>So, Emily Hart was a 23-year-old nurse, I believe? Born in Buffalo, lived in New York City, who loved ice fishing and Michelob Light and America. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Ej Dickson is a reporter for Wired. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>My job is to explain things that people are too afraid to Google at work. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And at the beginning of the year, she started looking into this influencer… who went by Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And she was a very pretty blonde girl, she looked a little bit like Jennifer Lawrence… loved posing on her pickup truck, in American flag bikinis. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily frequently wore a bright red, “Make America Great Again” hat in her photos. She would post Instagram reels set to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with captions laden with American flag emojis. Most of her content was about deporting, quote, “illegals” and supporting Trump. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Love posting racist memes and transphobic memes — you know, touching every single one of the MAGA bases. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She had that no-makeup makeup look, and when she wasn’t in a bikini or ice fishing, she posted about being a nurse. Within a few weeks of starting her account, Emily Hart had more than 10,000 followers. It was like everything about her was engineered to go viral in the MAGA-sphere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There are certain aspects of the Emily Hart brand that are so uniquely American that people who are only from America would understand like, ice fishing or Michelob Ultra and sort of the status that it has as the beer of like, the MAGA world. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>She’s a Trump supporter’s perfect woman. There’s just one problem — Emily Hart is not real. She’s completely AI-generated. If you look past her perfect body, bleached hair, and very polarizing captions, you’d spot the inconsistencies. I mean, who goes ice fishing in a bikini? EJ said that those inconsistencies are what tipped her off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Her profile said that she went to school in New York and currently lived in New York and she was from Buffalo — like the chances are very low that somebody that explicitly conservative would move to New York City for college and live in New York city and be like, a real human being — honestly. I mean, I’m sure they exist — I don’t think they look like Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in 2024, following Trump’s presidential win, EJ started seeing all of these tradwife-adjacent videos. They almost all featured a beautiful young blonde woman, in her 20s, kneading dough or sweeping the floor of a rustic kitchen. And, unlike the more modestly dressed tradwife influencers who popularized this content, the women in these videos were almost always wearing very low- cut dresses. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>There was sort of this sense of uncanny valley attached to them where it was like, “Oh these don’t really look like real people,” but they’re obviously trying to cater to a real… and honestly very terrifying audience. So, I started digging into it, because I saw one or two of these accounts and I was like “I bet there are more of them,” and just fell down this rabbit hole of AI MAGA hot girl accounts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was just one of countless AI MAGA hot girls taking over Instagram. These women are not real, but the people running their accounts are — and Ej found one of them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My pseudonym is Sam. I am a 22-year-old medical student. Currently, I am in my final year of medical school, and that’s pretty much it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam is the creator of Emily Hart, and what began as a get-rich-quick scheme for him quickly spiraled out of control. So, who is Sam, and what would possess him to create an AI MAGA hot girl? The saga of Emily Hart is such a wild ride that we’re actually going to split this deep dive into two parts. There’s so much to unpack here about the strange intersection of politics, AI, virtual influencers, privilege, and digital sex work. But today, we’re starting with Sam’s story. How did this 22-year-old student in India manage to dupe so many conservative men? Ready? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know how every good deep dive starts. Let’s open a new tab: Who is the real Emily Hart? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’ve probably picked up on this by now, but this tab is not about Emily Hart at all. It’s about the guy who made her. And in some ways, he’s like a lot of other straight guys his age. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I’m a big time gym rat. Like, even right now like, I’m talking to you and I’m completing my daily steps. Building a lean physique, getting shredded — that gives me happiness. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He asked that we call him Sam. We’re using a pseudonym for him because he’s in his final year of medical school, and is concerned about how this story could jeopardize his medical career and ability to emigrate to another country after graduation. Sam is 22, lives in northern India, and is studying orthopedic surgery. He’s from a middle-class family. Like a lot of Indians, he lives in an intergenerational household with his parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, my cousins, they are like my real brother and sister — you get a lot of love, you get a lot of support. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And Sam has always been fascinated by American culture. When I got on a call with him, he was like, “Wait, you live in Los Angeles? Is it really like Grand Theft Auto?” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I follow American politics. I wanted to do my post-graduation from USA. I was super into American culture, like — playing GTA, Grand Theft Auto, like, watching, uh, you can say, TV show, of like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and all. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it’s not just pop culture that made him want to immigrate here. He also wanted to leave India altogether. As close as his family is, his upbringing was, at times, strained. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It was not pleasant, you can say. Like, there is this thing called caste system in India. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>India’s caste system is thousands of years old. Historically, castes were tied to specific occupations. The higher castes were priests and warriors and rulers. The middle caste were merchants and skilled artisans. The lower caste did farm work or were servants. And then, there were people who were considered “untouchable” — and they faced the most discrimination, even today. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>To make up for generations of discrimination and economic inequality, the Indian government has a series of programs called “reservation.” It’s kind of like affirmative action — with strict quotas. A certain percentage of government jobs and public university spots are reserved for members of lower castes. The reservation system is very controversial in India, because it’s not based on current financial status. It’s based purely on caste, which is fixed at birth. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You know, like, reservation and caste system were introduced to uplift the lower class — uplift the backward people. It started as a good idea. You know, my family has decent money, like — okay-okay money — we are not very rich. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam’s ancestors were jewelers and fell into that middle tier of merchants and artisans. They’ve been solidly middle-class for generations. His family could not have afforded private school, so he had to compete for one of the very limited spots at his public university. There’s a key tension here between caste and class. Sam doesn’t come from a ton of money. He doesn’t have the same resources and safety net that the upper echelon of Indian society has. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The reservation system was designed to level the playing field. While it uplifts the most oppressed classes, Sam feels like it leaves the middle class behind. He said his own opportunities in India are limited — and that there’s no upward mobility for him. Becoming a doctor was never his great life goal… but, it’s a stable career that offers a considerably better salary than other jobs in India. And, there’s demand for doctors all over the world — he sees it as a ticket out of the caste system. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sam had his sights set on America. He saw it as a land of meritocracy and Grand Theft Auto. But while his parents helped him with tuition and licensing exam fees, he wanted to travel. He needed to buy his protein powder so that he could, as he put it, “get shredded.” And he wanted save up for his potential move to the U.S. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, he needed money. The problem? He’s in his last year of a five-and-a-half year medical program — and when he isn’t in class or working his medical internship, he’s studying for this big entrance exam to get into a post-grad medical specialty program. Plus, the job market in India sucks. Sam said that most entry-level, part-time jobs that college students typically get pay like, a dollar an hour. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If you work four hours per day for a whole month, you can hardly earn like, $100 for a month. And like, I didn’t want to, you know, put so much effort for so little cash. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong> And, Sam is a product of his generation. It’s not just his gym rat tendencies. It’s what made his story so compelling to Ej. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Sam is, I think, pretty representative of Gen Z males, in that there’s very much an emphasis on like, online side hustles. There were a lot of things that he tried to do to make money. He was doing online fitness coaching for a while, he was doing some of that like, drop shipping nonsense that all the Gen Z boys do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He tutored and sold notes and study guides for the U.S. medical licensing exam, which he already passed. He once saw Instagram ads about monetizing AI clips, so he started making AI Roblox videos for YouTube shorts. He was kind of just… chasing side hustles until something stuck. Then, while scrolling through Instagram, he came across this influencer. She was gorgeous, but Sam could tell she was AI-generated. And yet, she had a huge audience — all from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>She uploads pictures with Donald Trump. She’s a blonde military girl that uploads pictures with Donald Trump — and like, she had like, thousands and millions of likes, thousands of followers, so I wanted to create that. Like, Donald Trump — everyone knows him, everyone knows what he is doing, and you know, even like, me and my friends who follow American politics, we used to joke around MAGA people that they are so dumb, like they don’t understand anything… and like how can someone support Donald Trump? Like, after all that he’s doing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He hatched a plan: make a hot AI girl, go viral, and get rich. He opened Google’s AI image generator, also known as Nano Banana Pro. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I use a lot of Gemini. I never use ChatGPT — I am a Gemini guy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam initially tried to make the Indian version of the blonde military girl influencer, but it didn’t work out. For one, he said that because mainstream AI models are trained on American culture, Gemini struggled to generate a realistic-looking Indian woman. The hot Indian girl he was trying to create just looked… fake. And the second issue: he realized that Indian men just don’t spend money the way American men do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong> And like USA, there is big tipping culture — people, you know, easily pay- they are more willing to pay. That’s why I changed it to an American influencer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But first, he had to decide what this American influencer would be like. Sam turned to Gemini, which told him the influencer shouldn’t just be a “pretty girl.” She needed depth. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>You shouldn’t create- just create a beautiful women with no personality. You want people to connect with your Instagram model — then they will be connected with you, then they will buy your services, etcetera. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam had a new plan: create a hot blonde AI girl, go viral, and get rich. She would appeal to the typical American man — so that Sam could cash in on those sweet American tips. And she wouldn’t just look the part, she would have the personality of an all-American girl. Through TV shows, video games, and following American politics, he was familiar enough with American culture to pull it off. With a couple of curated prompts, he had a handful of images to start her account. The last thing he needed was a name. And that came from Gemini too: Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey guys, just enjoying the sun by the pool today. This feels so good. I’m gonna dip my toes in, so refreshing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily took off — thousands of followers in just a few weeks. Sam had unlocked the formula to reach a very specific group of American men. So, how did he do it? We’re getting into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going! You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break, Emily Hart goes MAGA. Stick around. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab: Becoming Emily Hart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At Gemini’s suggestion, Sam created a profile for Emily Hart, a blonde nurse from Buffalo who lives in New York City. It was pretty generic at first. He started posting as Emily in January, and immediately started getting attention… from a certain demographic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Once I created it, like, initially four or five DMs, all the DMs I got, was from, you can say, old 60, 70-year-old, MAGA people like, pro-MAGA, pro-right — like, those. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>And Gemini was apparently like, “You need to make a MAGA girl. You need to like a hot MAGA in a bikini, like, that’s gold.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He started posting images of Emily ice-fishing, drinking beer, and sexily firing rounds at the shooting range. He wrote captions like: \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>If you want a reason to unfollow? Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>POV: you were assigned intelligent at birth, but you identify as a liberal. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Followed by a clown emoji.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He approached it as a craft, and he really spent a lot of time trying to perfect his craft on Gemini —because the space was so saturated, that he really needed a gimmick or a niche to kind of corner in order to be successful. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It took a couple of weeks of consistent posting, but the payoff was real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>It took me three weeks to get initial 1,000 subscribers. And from there, in one week, I had like 14,000-15,000 subscribers, 20 million views and like, all that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>It helped that Emily’s audience wasn’t the most tech savvy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I want to be clear that Gemini did not explicitly say this, but I do think that that audience is probably less technologically well-versed than progressives are, and therefore more gullible and more prone to falling toward this kind of scheme. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam echoed this… more strongly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I don’t want to stereotype, but — like, what I have observed, like, the liberals and the left-wing people, they are usually smart. They are — you know, they have basic common sense. And you know, the MAGA people are like, super dumb people. I should not say that, but they are like — you can say they are not that aware on, you can say, technology. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>That’s not to say that there aren’t easily duped liberals. I do think that internet MAGA has a much, much stronger digital aesthetic than progressives do, for sure. There’s an iconography attached to it — and just seeing like, a blonde white girl wearing an American flag bikini while ice fishing, I mean, how much more MAGA can you get? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily’s very strong visual political identity resonated with her followers. Maybe that’s why they were less likely to be suspicious of her — the bright red MAGA hat she often wore also helped obscure some of the inconsistencies in her post. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>AI really, you know, messes up the hair also. So, to get around that, I used to include a MAGA cap in like, every image I make. So basically, like, I used to include accessories like sunglasses and MAGA cap to, you know, get two different… like, make it more believable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so it wasn’t even just, like, to appeal to MAGA. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Yeah, actually, it was — you know, it was beneficial in both ways. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or, maybe they didn’t suspect anything because she was hot, and that was disarming enough. Because, there were definitely red flags in Emily’s content. Video generation was less convincing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Emily Hart video]: \u003c/strong>Hey, handsome. I just got back to my tiny apartment after a 12-hour shift at Bellevue. NYC is just so loud tonight, but honestly? All I can think about is how much I missed you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>So Sam usually stuck to images — but even then, he said Gemini couldn’t quite get the eyes right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, you can say that it’s- it might not be real — there is something wrong with the picture. So you know what I used to do? Like, I used include sunglasses in every picture — every picture, I used to include sunglasses. Like, she’s wearing black sunglasses everywhere. Like she is ice-fishing, she is wearing sunglasses, like she’s inside her home, she’s wearing sunglasses. Even at night, she’s wearing sunglasses. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam studied up on MAGA ideology and how Trump supporters interact online. Every day, he’d spend 30 minutes to an hour creating content that was pro-Second Amendment, anti-immigrant, and anti-abortion. The more divisive the caption, the more engagement he got as Emily. He didn’t believe in any of this, but he knew what would get attention. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Weirdly, it was a scam that only somebody who was really interested in American culture could have pulled off, I think. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam has a real knack for engagement bait: engineering content that tricks social media algorithms to boost a post. Like, he was inspired by this TikTok trend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>There was a trend — on this song, like, it was around two years ago and it was this song — “I’m stylish, big top, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of TikTok trend video]: \u003c/strong>Bitch I’m stylish, black talk, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish. Watch on my wrist but I want that…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The videos usually started with someone getting ready, in a frumpy get-up — and, when the beat dropped, it would cut to them, fully glammed up. Sam was inspired by that split-second transition on the beat. So, using other songs, he put his own spin on it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I used to upload like, you can say, a catfish type of reel. There was like, four to six seconds reel of Emily Hart, a picture with her like, normal clothes. And then I used a sneak-in, like, for a millisecond, a picture of her in a swimsuit, you can say… sort of, like, a decent word — a swimsuit. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Driven by horny curiosity, viewers would try to pause the video in time to see the picture. And if they didn’t catch it in time, they’d have to play the video again. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And for that, they used to again and again, see multiple times, like four, five times, six times. So that Instagram gets the signal that this reel is so good that people are viewing it five to six times, so promote it. So normally I used to get like 200, 300 views, and like, these type of views used to get like, 10,000, 50,000, 25,000 views. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Emily Hart was a hit. Within a few weeks, she had over 15,000 followers on Instagram — which is a fraction of what the most popular real influencers have, but to build this following in such a short time period with such minimal effort? Real influencers grind for months to build that. Sam felt like he had unlocked something. His MAGA influencer was going strong, but he wondered if there was an untapped market out there. So… he tried to recreate the magic of Emily Hart, but this time for a liberal audience. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>It was very stereotypical. I mean, less aggressively so than Emily Hart, but it was like a girl with dyed red hair and a nose ring who would like post cute selfies with a coffee cup in Bushwick. You know, it was very generic. It was clear that she wasn’t as fully fleshed out as Emily Hart was. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, it was a complete flop because people used to know that it’s an AI flop and they like, usually didn’t interact with it, like, they didn’t comment. They were like, “This is AI slop, this is trash, we don’t have time,” something like that. And like, the MAGA people were like crazy — “Are you single? Can I message you?” Something like that. They were, you can say, a little more lusty, you can say. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But, it was fine. Sam had his hands full with Emily, anyway. In the early days, he got a real kick out of duping conservative men who had no idea they were talking to a 22-year-old Indian guy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>They were super racist. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>When he created Emily’s Facebook profile, he accidentally set his location to New Delhi. A random man messaged the profile. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>So, like, he went through my Facebook profile, he went through that, and he saw New Delhi. And he was like, “Have you been to India?” And I didn’t even say anything. And he used to like, “India is not a good place. It’s not safe for women. You shouldn’t have gone there.” And you know, the racist comments. And I didn’t talk to him. Like, he said, “Hi,” I said, “Hello.” Okay — then he started all this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But it never occurred to him that he could be just talking to someone who was Indian? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>No. It was a little fun like, you know, like, making a fool of such people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But this wasn’t just for fun. The entire reason he got into this was to make some cash. So, how did he monetize Emily Hart? That’s a new tab: why was Emily Hart so successful? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instagram is very strict about nudity and adult content. So, like many real human sex workers, Emily’s Instagram account was a vehicle to drive engagement to another site: Fanvue. The most popular subscription platform for adult content is OnlyFans. Using AI tools to edit content and manage messages is allowed, but the site totally bans “synthetic personas” — fully AI-generated characters like Emily Hart. In fact, a lot of adult subscription sites do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, Sam used Fanvue, which is where a lot AI influencers sell nudes. Google’s Gemini blocks the generation of explicit content, and although there are ways to get around it, Sam’s hustle was all about doing the least amount of work for the most amount of money. So, he used Grok. He generated a couple nudes, uploaded them to Fanvue, set a subscription fee, and locked the juiciest content behind a paywall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then… the cash started rolling in. Sam was blown away at how easily Americans spent money. He couldn’t believe they were tipping him — or really, Emily — just to respond to their messages. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>People used to hugely tip. I don’t know why people tip in USA — like, I am 22 years old, I have never in my life once seen someone tipping in India. And like, people were like, crazy, they used to tip me $20, $10, and I was thinking like, “Why people are sending me extra money? I dont know.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He made a few thousand dollars within days of starting the account. Again, human adult content creators grind for years to get this kind of audience… and to generate anything close to this amount of revenue. What was it about Emily that made her so popular? Ej has a theory. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think that probably at the time that Sam was doing this, the space was a little less saturated, so there was less competition. And, I think, probably the most major contributor to this is the fact that there’s a really strong element of self-delusion at play here, right? In order to buy into Emily Hart’s whole persona, you not only have to believe that this woman exists, you have to be believe that she is a hot 24-year-old girl who exists and believes exactly the same things as you do — and validates every single opinion you have. I think these men got off to that probably more than anything. And I think that’s very powerful for the MAGA sect. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>There are real adult content creators who are also conservative. Ej pointed to Brandi Love, who’s known for making MILF porn and also being a vocal Trump supporter. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think what differentiates Emily from someone like Brandi, is Brandi does not make it integral to her persona, right? She very rarely posts about politics, and that’s Emily’s entire brand is combining politics with sex. With the conservative adult creators, the politics are kind of incidental to the main product, which is the sex. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam knew he was playing into some kind of fantasy, and soon after starting the Fanvue account, started feeling really bad about it. He didn’t like the idea of deceiving anyone for money. Emily Hart’s Instagram account wasn’t labeled as AI, but Sam wasn’t making money there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>If someone paid for my Fanvue, I used to disclose it — like, you should know this, before spending like, too much money. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And when subscribers sent him additional tips on Fanvue, he’d actually message them back. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>And like, I used to say to them — “That you should know, I’m artificially generated.”. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The wild thing is, the subscribers didn’t seem to care at all — even when Sam reminded them that the girl they were paying wasn’t real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, two or three people messaged me, like, “We think that you are AI-generated, but we love the reels you are making. You are supporting Trump, you are supporting the Republicans, so we will support you. We don’t care.” So, many were like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really don’t think that the majority of these men care if the woman on the other side of the screen is fake — and that’s kind of the scariest part to me, because I think that that principle applies to AI-generated content on the internet in general. I don’t think people care if something is real or fake anymore. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>What would drive Emily Hart subscribers to continue following her, subscribing to her exclusive content, and even paying to DM her if they knew she wasn’t really a hot 24-year-old, pickup truck-driving, ice-fishing nurse in New York City? They knew the pictures they were liking and saving — among other things — were generated using AI. At that point, why continue following her? Why not just chat with an AI girlfriend on Character AI or something? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I really think it comes down to this idea of intimacy, which is the whole reason why OnlyFans blew up in the first place. Like, the whole premise of OnlyFans is that men are directly connecting with the objects of their fantasies. And, the level of intimacy that is provided by that exchange goes beyond sex, it goes beyond getting off. It really is about human connection. So I think that a lot of the men who paid for Emily Hart’s content were sort of willing to suspend their disbelief in exchange for that element of intimacy, of connection, of human interaction that they were trying to convince themselves that they were getting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam was making way more money than he ever could have made working a part-time job during school. Every day, he generates some more Emily content and come up with a racist, xenophobic caption that he knew would get attention. He kept an eye on all the viral trends that other hot girls, AI or not, were doing on Instagram and TikTok. Emily’s fans weren’t just American either. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I got a guy from Germany, I got a guy from Switzerland, like, many different people. Like, on Instagram, I didn’t use to reply because like, my DM was filled, every day I get 100, 200, 300 messages. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Sam ignored most of the Instagram messages, but made sure that Fanvue subscribers got a response, because they had to pay to unlock those. The site has an AI feature that generates messages based on previous chats, so he could automate responses. Although he didn’t have to respond to subscribers himself, he did have to see what they sent back. And they were getting a little too comfortable in Emily’s DMs. That’s a whole new tab: Emily Hart’s Simp Army. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the upside? Sam made a good amount of money as Emily Hart. The downside? He was dealing with some real creeps. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>I can’t even say what people were sending me to Instagram, like, it’s inappropriate. But like, people are sending inappropriate images, inappropriate messages. “Hey, are you single? What’s up? Where do you live?” Like, these are general. But like, some people were like, so creepy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Navigating the internet as Emily was an eye-opening experience for Sam. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>My friends don’t even message me that much. When I started, I used to get like, 10-15 messages, easily. Like, so much attention. And I was thinking like, “Do pretty women get so much attention?” Like, I was like, surprised. But it’s not good kind of attention — it’s not the kind of attention people want. It’s super disgusting. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>As Emily Hart — patriot and rising Fanvue star —Sam experienced what women haven’t subjected to since the birth of texting: unsolicited dick pics. He was appalled. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam: \u003c/strong>Like, directly, blatantly, like, no context, no “hi,” and then the image. Like, it was super weird, super creepy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>He learned to stop checking Emily Hart’s Instagram messages, but he couldn’t ignore the ones on Fanvue, because that’s where he was making money. One guy on Fanvue sent him 50 bucks, and then to accompany the tip, the subscriber attached a video of himself, naked, humping a pillow that propped up a tablet with Emily’s nude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I mean, these guys were sending him cum tributes, like they were ejaculating on photos of Emily Hart, or like sending videos of themselves masturbating on Emily Hart’s photo — and he would have to see this, like, all the time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then, there was the emotional toll, too. The unsolicited videos were gross, but they were nothing compared to the trauma-dumping that Emily’s subscribers did in her DMs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>He would get messages all the time from people who would buy her videos and buy her exclusive content — and they would be like, “Are you real or are you AI?” But then they would go on and talk about their days, or talk about how lonely they were, how much they hated their wives. I found Sam very thoughtful and self-reflective. I think that he felt guilty about deceiving them, honestly. They would share things with him sometimes that went beyond the typical OnlyFans model-subscriber relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just going back to that idea of intimacy and human connection, like they would talk about how terrible their marriages were and they hadn’t slept in the same bed as and their wives in years and how they recently lost a parent or a beloved family member. When there was a theoretical audience of dumb MAGA guys paying for this content, I think he was more comfortable with that than with engaging with them all on an individual level and being like, “Oh, these are real people with real problems.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>The AI MAGA hot girl venture was supposed to be easy cash. And the fact that he was tricking Americans, whose politics he fundamentally disagreed with — who would probably be horrified to find out they were sending cum tributes to a 22-year-old Indian guy — felt like poetic justice. But the grift… stoped being fun. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>I think it got too intense. I think he got burnt out by it very fast. He wasn’t doing it for very long. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>And then the Instagram ban started. The scammer accusations followed. Emily Hart, AKA Sam, was under fire. That’s it for part one of the story, but don’t worry. We’re not finished with this deep dive yet. Next week, we’re getting into the rest of the Emily Hart saga, the scammer debate, and what happened with Sam’s lifelong dream of moving to America. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As usual, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. And if you’re dying to open more tabs before part two drops next week, we’ll link to some further reading in our show notes. We’re leaving these tabs open for now. So, come back for the rest of the story. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited and audio engineered by Chris Egusa. Production help from our intern, Lauren Yoon. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his White Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode includes AI-generated clips of Emily Hart, courtesy of Sam. We also used a clip of the song “Billie Eilish” by Armani White. Thanks for listening. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Can I say cum tributes on here or should I just- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung: \u003c/strong>But you will have to, uh — for the normies — explain what cum tributes are. \u003cem>[Laughs].\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ej Dickson: \u003c/strong>Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "‘Anxiety and Fear’: Bay Area Indians, Pakistanis React to Escalating Cross-Border Tensions",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> residents with roots in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/india\">India\u003c/a> and Pakistan are watching anxiously as tensions rise between the two countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the two South Asian countries have fought multiple wars and skirmishes since Britain divided its former colony into two separate states, a recent attack on civilians has stoked conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/RoKhanna/status/1919927687289712814\">on CNN this week\u003c/a>, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Santa Clara) urged Pakistani Army Chief Aseem Munir not to retaliate against India after it launched multiple missiles at the country. He said the “most urgent thing is de-escalation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are bringing the Indian American Caucus and the Pakistani Caucus together in the Congress next week to show that Americans of South Asian origin want peace in the region and are working with each other to push for that,” he said in a statement to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Current tensions arose from an attack in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, a region divided and disputed by India, Pakistan and China. In late April, a group of militants killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, a small town located in the India-administered portion of the region. A majority of the \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indian-survivors-kashmir-attack-gunmen-asked-hindus-opened-121314820\">victims were Hindus\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032713\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032713\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rep. Ro Khanna holds a town hall meeting at the MLK Community Center in Bakersfield on March 23, 2025, the first of three town hall events Khanna was set to hold in Republican-held congressional districts across the state. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indian officials blamed Pakistan for the attack and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/04/23/nx-s1-5373960/india-pakistan-tensions-flare-up-following-deadly-attack-in-kashmir\">suspended a water treaty with Pakistan\u003c/a>, citing national security concerns, and ousted military advisers from the Pakistani embassy in New Delhi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials from Pakistan have \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5389777/tensions-escalate-as-pakistan-calls-indias-operation-an-act-of-war\">denied involvement\u003c/a> in the attack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, both countries have launched missile attacks against each other, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/08/nx-s1-5389651/india-pakistan-conflict-international-community\">killing some civilians and injuring others\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, home to one of the largest diasporas of \u003ca href=\"https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/indian-immigrants-united-states#distribution\">Indian\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/asian-americans-pakistanis-in-the-u-s/#:~:text=About%20580%2C000%20people%20in%20the,increase%20over%20roughly%20two%20decades.\">Pakistani\u003c/a> communities in the U.S., residents are watching the conflict unfold from afar.[aside postID=news_11985061 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-027-1020x680.jpg']“There’s just a lot of anxiety and fear of what’s to come,” said Anu Mandavilli, an organizer with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action. “[Both countries] also have huge armies, both have nuclear arms, so it’s very scary to think that … there’s going to be one more war between these two countries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>India and Pakistan started developing and testing nuclear weapons in the late 20th century. According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2024/role-nuclear-weapons-grows-geopolitical-relations-deteriorate-new-sipri-yearbook-out-now#:~:text=Nuclear%20arsenals%20being%20strengthened%20around,'\">estimates\u003c/a> from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, both countries have about 170 missiles each.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandavilli said, while some Bay Area residents from India are still angry from the attacks and are “cheering on this war,” many people are calling for peace. She said, residents within India and Pakistan may hear inflammatory rhetoric from political parties there, but members of the diaspora do not necessarily share those sentiments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the diaspora, when you actually meet people from the other country, you have an opportunity to actually get to know them and … dream of peace,” she said. “We are so alike. Whether it’s the food, the clothing or the language or the culture, values — there is so much that is similar … The diasporas have a role in building solidarity with each other’s communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement to KQED, Zahra Billoo, executive director for the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that many residents are checking in with family members in Pakistan, India and Kashmir, and were praying for safety and peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to monitor developments closely and urge elected officials to support de-escalation, accountability and the protection of civilians,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> residents with roots in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/india\">India\u003c/a> and Pakistan are watching anxiously as tensions rise between the two countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the two South Asian countries have fought multiple wars and skirmishes since Britain divided its former colony into two separate states, a recent attack on civilians has stoked conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/RoKhanna/status/1919927687289712814\">on CNN this week\u003c/a>, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Santa Clara) urged Pakistani Army Chief Aseem Munir not to retaliate against India after it launched multiple missiles at the country. He said the “most urgent thing is de-escalation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are bringing the Indian American Caucus and the Pakistani Caucus together in the Congress next week to show that Americans of South Asian origin want peace in the region and are working with each other to push for that,” he said in a statement to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Current tensions arose from an attack in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, a region divided and disputed by India, Pakistan and China. In late April, a group of militants killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, a small town located in the India-administered portion of the region. A majority of the \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indian-survivors-kashmir-attack-gunmen-asked-hindus-opened-121314820\">victims were Hindus\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032713\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032713\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250323-DEM-TOWN-HALLS-MD-21-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rep. Ro Khanna holds a town hall meeting at the MLK Community Center in Bakersfield on March 23, 2025, the first of three town hall events Khanna was set to hold in Republican-held congressional districts across the state. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indian officials blamed Pakistan for the attack and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/04/23/nx-s1-5373960/india-pakistan-tensions-flare-up-following-deadly-attack-in-kashmir\">suspended a water treaty with Pakistan\u003c/a>, citing national security concerns, and ousted military advisers from the Pakistani embassy in New Delhi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials from Pakistan have \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5389777/tensions-escalate-as-pakistan-calls-indias-operation-an-act-of-war\">denied involvement\u003c/a> in the attack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, both countries have launched missile attacks against each other, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/08/nx-s1-5389651/india-pakistan-conflict-international-community\">killing some civilians and injuring others\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, home to one of the largest diasporas of \u003ca href=\"https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/indian-immigrants-united-states#distribution\">Indian\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/asian-americans-pakistanis-in-the-u-s/#:~:text=About%20580%2C000%20people%20in%20the,increase%20over%20roughly%20two%20decades.\">Pakistani\u003c/a> communities in the U.S., residents are watching the conflict unfold from afar.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There’s just a lot of anxiety and fear of what’s to come,” said Anu Mandavilli, an organizer with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action. “[Both countries] also have huge armies, both have nuclear arms, so it’s very scary to think that … there’s going to be one more war between these two countries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>India and Pakistan started developing and testing nuclear weapons in the late 20th century. According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2024/role-nuclear-weapons-grows-geopolitical-relations-deteriorate-new-sipri-yearbook-out-now#:~:text=Nuclear%20arsenals%20being%20strengthened%20around,'\">estimates\u003c/a> from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, both countries have about 170 missiles each.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandavilli said, while some Bay Area residents from India are still angry from the attacks and are “cheering on this war,” many people are calling for peace. She said, residents within India and Pakistan may hear inflammatory rhetoric from political parties there, but members of the diaspora do not necessarily share those sentiments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the diaspora, when you actually meet people from the other country, you have an opportunity to actually get to know them and … dream of peace,” she said. “We are so alike. Whether it’s the food, the clothing or the language or the culture, values — there is so much that is similar … The diasporas have a role in building solidarity with each other’s communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement to KQED, Zahra Billoo, executive director for the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that many residents are checking in with family members in Pakistan, India and Kashmir, and were praying for safety and peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to monitor developments closely and urge elected officials to support de-escalation, accountability and the protection of civilians,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-family-fled-ethnic-violence-in-india-they-still-feel-the-impacts-in-the-bay-area",
"title": "A Family Fled Ethnic Violence in India. Its Echoes Resonate in the Bay Area",
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"headTitle": "A Family Fled Ethnic Violence in India. Its Echoes Resonate in the Bay Area | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This story originally published on May 7, 2024. It was supported by the Pulitzer Center. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sitting on a chair in a rented apartment in Delhi, India, Madhumati Khwairakpam recalled fleeing her home in Manipur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 3, 2023, violence erupted after a local court awarded government benefits to the Meitei people, an ethnic group native to Manipur, a state in northeast India. A majority of the Meiteis practice Hinduism, though Manipur’s dominant ethnic community includes Muslims, Christians and followers of the traditional Sanamahi religion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several tribal communities, including the Kuki, who are mostly Christian, protested the court ruling. Waves of armed Meitei mobs, unofficially supported by the state government according to activists and human rights groups, chanted “Death to Kukis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Khwairakpam, an 87-year-old mother of 10 who identifies as Meitei, married into a Kuki family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11985060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11985060\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2200\" height=\"1237\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004.jpg 2200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2200px) 100vw, 2200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Madhumati Khwairakpam, 87, eats lunch on March 31, 2024, made primarily with vegetables grown in Manipur, which the family bought in Delhi. Right: Tara Hangzo holds a photo of her parents, Vungkham Hangzo (left) and Madhumati Khwairakpam, in the apartment Hangzo shares with her mother, Madhumati, and her sister and sister-in-law in Delhi, India, on March 31, 2024. The photo was recovered by Hangzo’s sister-in-law, Renu Takhellambam, at their home in Manipur after the house was looted following the violence that erupted on May 3, 2023. It was the only photo found at the home. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One year ago this month, the lights in the family’s two-story home were off as they huddled silently in a bedroom. They heard the sound of windows being shattered by tossed stones. Someone called and said the nearby church had been lit aflame. The blasts from gas cylinders used for cooking shook the neighboring houses like bombs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reverberations were felt in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For roughly three decades, one of Khwairakpam’s daughters, Niang Hangzo, who was born and raised in Manipur, has lived in the Bay Area. Another daughter, Vung Hangzo, also lives in the Bay Area. According to \u003cem>The Mercury News\u003c/em>, people born in India \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/28/how-big-is-bay-area-boom-in-india-born-residents-together-theyd-rank-as-the-regions-fourth-largest-city/?clearUserState=true\">represent the largest immigrant group\u003c/a> in Santa Clara and Alameda counties. That’s about 250,000 people, as Indian immigrants have settled in Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Fremont and Dublin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Niang Hangzo co-founded an organization to raise awareness and support for the Kuki people. Bay Area residents who are part of the Indian diaspora attended protests in August. \u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/4/15/manipur-bjp-cm-inflamed-conflict-assam-rifles-report-on-india-violence\">More than 200 people have been killed\u003c/a> since the conflict in Manipur began, and 60,000 people, like Khwairakpam, have been displaced, according to Al Jazeera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hundreds of churches have been reduced to ashes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is unprecedented,” Niang Hangzo said. “The fact that they were burned seems to be very obvious that this is a real overt act of showing that ‘You guys don’t belong here.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s Lakshmi Sarah and Beth LaBerge traveled to Delhi in March to see how Khwairakpam and her family are coping with the trauma of displacement. Khwairakpam told KQED she doesn’t have hope of seeing her home in Imphal, Manipur’s capital, again. She spoke in the Meitei language known as Manipuri, which was translated by Tara Manchin Hangzo, a daughter who lives with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11984078 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madhumati Khwairakpam’s daughter, Niang Hangzo, displays side-by-side photos of her family posing in front of their home in Manipur on the left in 2012. On the right, an image of the house after it burned when ethnic violence erupted on May 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One year ago, Khwairakpam and her family stood on the street as their home burned before running to a hotel operated by a Meitei man. Khwairakpam lost one of her slippers in the melee. They watched the mob grow on surveillance video. They stayed at the hotel until the police arrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The police escorted them to a police station and then to a Kuki woman’s house near the precinct, where they waited to be picked up by the Indian Army. Several family members stayed in a squalid relief camp for three nights before relatives in the United States helped 12 of them pay for flights to Delhi, the sprawling metropolitan area that’s 1,500 miles away from their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of them, we were able to escape,” Khwairakpam said of her family in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11985075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11985075\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dozens of houses lay vandalized and burnt during ethnic clashes and rioting in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur on June 21, 2023. \u003ccite>(Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Khwairakpam doesn’t speak Hindi, the primary language spoken in Delhi. She’s had breathing problems when the air quality is hazardous. Her joints ached in the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are no fruit trees near their three-bedroom apartment like the ones that surrounded their home in Manipur. There isn’t space to sit outside or walk on the street without the blaring horns of cars navigating the congested roads. The family doesn’t know how long they can afford the tight quarters they share, yet they still come together to enjoy each other’s company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984050\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984050\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madhumati Khwairakpam, 87, rests in the room she shares with her daughter, Junia, while her daughter Tara sits with her on the bed at their apartment in Delhi on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984054\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984054\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Junia Hangzo, Khwairakpam’s youngest daughter, does laundry at the apartment she shares with her mother, sister, and sister-in-law in Delhi on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984053\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984053\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Jason Hangzo, 17, Renu Takhellambam, Jason’s mother, and Junia Hangzo drink tea together in their apartment in Delhi, India, on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘I didn’t believe it’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On May 4, 2023, Niang Hangzo received a WhatsApp message from her brother as she was on her way to her engineering job in San José. He said their house in Manipur was under attack, but she ignored the message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t believe it,” she recalled. “It’s so preposterous. What’s he talking about?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984079\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984079\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Niang Hangzo sits inside her home in Aptos, California, on Feb. 3, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She called her oldest sister, who was in Delhi for cancer treatment. It was true. According to Niang Hangzo, who knows many of the families living in the Bay Area who immigrated from Manipur, most of the mob were also from the local area. Some were neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They knew my mother,” she said. “She might have been the one who delivered them because she worked as a nurse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the violence, she formed the \u003ca href=\"https://namta.us/\">North American Manipur Tribal Association\u003c/a> with a former Imphal neighbor, who now lives in Texas, to preserve the heritage of Manipur’s tribal people. Doing something felt important, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The other option was to just stay and do nothing, just cry and console each other,” she said. “They lost everything. But beyond that, I think nobody anticipated it to be this long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984693\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11984693 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2200\" height=\"1238\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002.jpg 2200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2200px) 100vw, 2200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Sisters Niang (left) and Vung Hangzo sit at Vung’s home in San José on April 21, 2024. Right: Vung Hangzo looks at a WhatsApp group chat with her sisters that shows a photo of their mother, Madhumati Khwairakpam, in Delhi, at her home in San José on April 21, 2024. The family primarily uses WhatsApp to keep in touch and get updates on the situation in Manipur. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently seeking a historic third term, finally \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/india-modi-parliament-manipur-861226ea4158aaf3f278cc21cb0c9579\">broke his silence\u003c/a> more than three months after the violence began. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party holds power in Manipur, a hilly and mountainous state that shares an international border with Myanmar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conflict has impacted \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/world/asia/india-presidential-election-voting-manipur.html\">voting in the region\u003c/a>, as armed men have attacked polling stations, according to \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>. The third round of voting in the world’s largest general election is scheduled for today. There will be \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/world/india/why-does-voting-last-six-weeks-indias-general-election-2024-04-17/\">seven phases in total\u003c/a> and results will be announced on June 4. Niang Hangzo is afraid of what will happen when the news cycle moves on.[aside postID=news_11957446 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg']“We could be annihilated, and nobody would know,” she said. “We need to have the government step up and the world to listen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 1 billion Indians are eligible to cast ballots, but Tara Hangzo isn’t one because the government has not established a way for \u003ca href=\"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/risk-to-life-makes-voting-tough-exercise-for-displaced/articleshow/109416369.cms\">internally displaced people to vote remotely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel that I’m not part of India. Why should we be denied our right to vote just because we are here in Delhi as a displaced person?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Khwairakpam was forced to leave her home eight decades earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1944, around the time of the Battle of Imphal, when Japanese troops attempted to break Allied lines to invade India through Myanmar, then known as Burma. British Indian troops forced the Japanese to retreat during the fighting that changed the course of World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kishalay Bhattacharjee, a journalist who has reported on northeastern India, said there are many layers to today’s violence in Manipur. Land, jobs and economic interests in the region, including the illicit trade of narcotics, human trafficking and arms, makes Manipur one of the most strategic states in India, according to Bhattacharjee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another layer is the armed militias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the most important story is the rise of a civil guerrilla outfit amongst the Meiteis,” Bhattacharjee said, referring to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.outlookindia.com/national/explained-who-are-meitei-radical-group-arambai-tenggol-and-why-did-they-summon-manipur-lawmakers\">Arambai Tenggol\u003c/a>, a radical Meitei group that is allegedly abducting people and threatening the government, according to news reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are the ones who are spearheading the attack against the Kukis,” Bhattacharjee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mob violence has created a situation that Sanjib Baruah, a professor of political studies at Bard College, believes resembles a civil war.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is ample evidence pointing to the fact that the state government bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for this violence,” he wrote in March in \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23210230241235360\">Studies in Indian Politics\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, an academic journal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984055\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984055\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A poster of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi hangs on a wall in Delhi, India, on March 31, 2024. The poster advertises the G20 summit, which took place in September 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chitra Ahanthem, an independent journalist, said many people, including the media, have oversimplified the conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not about the majority versus the minority. It’s not about the Hindu versus the Christian. It’s not about the poor tribal versus the entitled, majority community,” she said. “It’s much worse than that because the real reason is just too murky.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes it comes down to geopolitics and India’s business interests in Myanmar, where a civil war has been raging since the military coup in 2021. She said the conflict in Manipur provides a reason for the central government to activate more forces in the region, which is useful for India to defend itself against China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahanthem was in Manipur in November to aid in the relief work. Because she is Meitei, she was only able to visit Meitei camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are people who have committed suicides inside relief camps because they don’t see a future,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People from the Meitei community in Delhi who have spoken out critically against the state government have had their homes in Manipur attacked by local militia, she said. Because of the retaliation tactics, many Meiteis in Delhi contacted by KQED said they did not want to speak to the media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Society is on its back foot when you are not allowed to ask questions. And that’s exactly where Manipur is,” Ahanthem said. “That’s exactly where India is — that you cannot ask questions anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984058\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984058\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tara Hangzo buys vegetables from a shop owner from the Naga tribal community in Manipur in the Munirka neighborhood of Delhi, India, on March 30, 2024. “Will I ever have peace of mind? Will my community ever have a peace of mind? … Will we trust them, [Meitei people]?” Hangzo asked. “We will not be able to live together in peace for many years to come.” \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984060\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tara Hangzo (center right) prays during Good Friday services at the Evangelical Baptist Convention Church in Delhi, India, on March 29, 2024. Hangzo belongs to the predominantly Christian Kuki tribal community. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘At least we have one another here’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tara Hangzo’s life has drastically changed since coming to Delhi. It’s not just the extreme heat and cooler weather but also the water and food. Even the rice tastes different, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have very special rice. It’s almost sticky,” said Tara Hangzo, who continues to participate in the protest movement. “Everything was so natural and so fresh. We were living in a lap of nature.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ching Songput, daughter of Madhumati Khwairakpam, prepares tea in her kitchen in Delhi, India, on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She stops and looks at the stands on the side of the road to see if there are any items native to Manipur. She spends most of her time taking care of Khwairakpam and Junia Hangzo, her younger sister who has Down syndrome, with the help of her sister-in-law, whose husband died several years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ching Songput, Khwairakpam’s oldest daughter who is in Delhi for cancer treatment, doesn’t mind that she lost most of the material things like clothes and jewelry, but she wishes she still had the photo albums and videos from when her three daughters were young. Those were lost when the family’s compound was ransacked. The only photo recovered is of her mother and father, which is now in Khwairakpam’s Delhi apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For nearly a week, 11 members of the family shared Songput’s three-bedroom apartment. The family is devout Christian and has formed friendships with many people in the Kuki Christian community in Delhi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a church, so we get busy with that,” Songput said. “We miss what we used to have in Imphal. But at least we have one another here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984063\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Ching Songput, Tara Hangzo, and Junia Hangzo shop for food at a market in Delhi, India, on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tara Hangzo (right) and her sister Junia Hangzo walk through Delhi, India, on March 26, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "One year ago, the family of Bay resident Niang Hangzo fled violence in India. Hangzo started an organization to help raise awareness of the ethnic conflict as her mother and other family members wondered how to rebuild their lives.",
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"title": "A Family Fled Ethnic Violence in India. Its Echoes Resonate in the Bay Area | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This story originally published on May 7, 2024. It was supported by the Pulitzer Center. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sitting on a chair in a rented apartment in Delhi, India, Madhumati Khwairakpam recalled fleeing her home in Manipur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 3, 2023, violence erupted after a local court awarded government benefits to the Meitei people, an ethnic group native to Manipur, a state in northeast India. A majority of the Meiteis practice Hinduism, though Manipur’s dominant ethnic community includes Muslims, Christians and followers of the traditional Sanamahi religion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several tribal communities, including the Kuki, who are mostly Christian, protested the court ruling. Waves of armed Meitei mobs, unofficially supported by the state government according to activists and human rights groups, chanted “Death to Kukis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Khwairakpam, an 87-year-old mother of 10 who identifies as Meitei, married into a Kuki family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11985060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11985060\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2200\" height=\"1237\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004.jpg 2200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-004-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2200px) 100vw, 2200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Madhumati Khwairakpam, 87, eats lunch on March 31, 2024, made primarily with vegetables grown in Manipur, which the family bought in Delhi. Right: Tara Hangzo holds a photo of her parents, Vungkham Hangzo (left) and Madhumati Khwairakpam, in the apartment Hangzo shares with her mother, Madhumati, and her sister and sister-in-law in Delhi, India, on March 31, 2024. The photo was recovered by Hangzo’s sister-in-law, Renu Takhellambam, at their home in Manipur after the house was looted following the violence that erupted on May 3, 2023. It was the only photo found at the home. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One year ago this month, the lights in the family’s two-story home were off as they huddled silently in a bedroom. They heard the sound of windows being shattered by tossed stones. Someone called and said the nearby church had been lit aflame. The blasts from gas cylinders used for cooking shook the neighboring houses like bombs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reverberations were felt in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For roughly three decades, one of Khwairakpam’s daughters, Niang Hangzo, who was born and raised in Manipur, has lived in the Bay Area. Another daughter, Vung Hangzo, also lives in the Bay Area. According to \u003cem>The Mercury News\u003c/em>, people born in India \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/28/how-big-is-bay-area-boom-in-india-born-residents-together-theyd-rank-as-the-regions-fourth-largest-city/?clearUserState=true\">represent the largest immigrant group\u003c/a> in Santa Clara and Alameda counties. That’s about 250,000 people, as Indian immigrants have settled in Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Fremont and Dublin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Niang Hangzo co-founded an organization to raise awareness and support for the Kuki people. Bay Area residents who are part of the Indian diaspora attended protests in August. \u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/4/15/manipur-bjp-cm-inflamed-conflict-assam-rifles-report-on-india-violence\">More than 200 people have been killed\u003c/a> since the conflict in Manipur began, and 60,000 people, like Khwairakpam, have been displaced, according to Al Jazeera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hundreds of churches have been reduced to ashes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is unprecedented,” Niang Hangzo said. “The fact that they were burned seems to be very obvious that this is a real overt act of showing that ‘You guys don’t belong here.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s Lakshmi Sarah and Beth LaBerge traveled to Delhi in March to see how Khwairakpam and her family are coping with the trauma of displacement. Khwairakpam told KQED she doesn’t have hope of seeing her home in Imphal, Manipur’s capital, again. She spoke in the Meitei language known as Manipuri, which was translated by Tara Manchin Hangzo, a daughter who lives with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11984078 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madhumati Khwairakpam’s daughter, Niang Hangzo, displays side-by-side photos of her family posing in front of their home in Manipur on the left in 2012. On the right, an image of the house after it burned when ethnic violence erupted on May 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One year ago, Khwairakpam and her family stood on the street as their home burned before running to a hotel operated by a Meitei man. Khwairakpam lost one of her slippers in the melee. They watched the mob grow on surveillance video. They stayed at the hotel until the police arrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The police escorted them to a police station and then to a Kuki woman’s house near the precinct, where they waited to be picked up by the Indian Army. Several family members stayed in a squalid relief camp for three nights before relatives in the United States helped 12 of them pay for flights to Delhi, the sprawling metropolitan area that’s 1,500 miles away from their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of them, we were able to escape,” Khwairakpam said of her family in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11985075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11985075\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/23210438080991-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dozens of houses lay vandalized and burnt during ethnic clashes and rioting in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur on June 21, 2023. \u003ccite>(Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Khwairakpam doesn’t speak Hindi, the primary language spoken in Delhi. She’s had breathing problems when the air quality is hazardous. Her joints ached in the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are no fruit trees near their three-bedroom apartment like the ones that surrounded their home in Manipur. There isn’t space to sit outside or walk on the street without the blaring horns of cars navigating the congested roads. The family doesn’t know how long they can afford the tight quarters they share, yet they still come together to enjoy each other’s company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984050\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984050\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-008-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madhumati Khwairakpam, 87, rests in the room she shares with her daughter, Junia, while her daughter Tara sits with her on the bed at their apartment in Delhi on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984054\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984054\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-005-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Junia Hangzo, Khwairakpam’s youngest daughter, does laundry at the apartment she shares with her mother, sister, and sister-in-law in Delhi on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984053\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984053\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-003-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Jason Hangzo, 17, Renu Takhellambam, Jason’s mother, and Junia Hangzo drink tea together in their apartment in Delhi, India, on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘I didn’t believe it’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On May 4, 2023, Niang Hangzo received a WhatsApp message from her brother as she was on her way to her engineering job in San José. He said their house in Manipur was under attack, but she ignored the message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t believe it,” she recalled. “It’s so preposterous. What’s he talking about?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984079\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984079\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240421-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-004-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Niang Hangzo sits inside her home in Aptos, California, on Feb. 3, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She called her oldest sister, who was in Delhi for cancer treatment. It was true. According to Niang Hangzo, who knows many of the families living in the Bay Area who immigrated from Manipur, most of the mob were also from the local area. Some were neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They knew my mother,” she said. “She might have been the one who delivered them because she worked as a nurse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the violence, she formed the \u003ca href=\"https://namta.us/\">North American Manipur Tribal Association\u003c/a> with a former Imphal neighbor, who now lives in Texas, to preserve the heritage of Manipur’s tribal people. Doing something felt important, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The other option was to just stay and do nothing, just cry and console each other,” she said. “They lost everything. But beyond that, I think nobody anticipated it to be this long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984693\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11984693 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2200\" height=\"1238\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002.jpg 2200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240421-BayAreaManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-Diptych-002-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2200px) 100vw, 2200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Sisters Niang (left) and Vung Hangzo sit at Vung’s home in San José on April 21, 2024. Right: Vung Hangzo looks at a WhatsApp group chat with her sisters that shows a photo of their mother, Madhumati Khwairakpam, in Delhi, at her home in San José on April 21, 2024. The family primarily uses WhatsApp to keep in touch and get updates on the situation in Manipur. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently seeking a historic third term, finally \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/india-modi-parliament-manipur-861226ea4158aaf3f278cc21cb0c9579\">broke his silence\u003c/a> more than three months after the violence began. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party holds power in Manipur, a hilly and mountainous state that shares an international border with Myanmar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conflict has impacted \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/world/asia/india-presidential-election-voting-manipur.html\">voting in the region\u003c/a>, as armed men have attacked polling stations, according to \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>. The third round of voting in the world’s largest general election is scheduled for today. There will be \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/world/india/why-does-voting-last-six-weeks-indias-general-election-2024-04-17/\">seven phases in total\u003c/a> and results will be announced on June 4. Niang Hangzo is afraid of what will happen when the news cycle moves on.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We could be annihilated, and nobody would know,” she said. “We need to have the government step up and the world to listen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 1 billion Indians are eligible to cast ballots, but Tara Hangzo isn’t one because the government has not established a way for \u003ca href=\"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/risk-to-life-makes-voting-tough-exercise-for-displaced/articleshow/109416369.cms\">internally displaced people to vote remotely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel that I’m not part of India. Why should we be denied our right to vote just because we are here in Delhi as a displaced person?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Khwairakpam was forced to leave her home eight decades earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1944, around the time of the Battle of Imphal, when Japanese troops attempted to break Allied lines to invade India through Myanmar, then known as Burma. British Indian troops forced the Japanese to retreat during the fighting that changed the course of World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kishalay Bhattacharjee, a journalist who has reported on northeastern India, said there are many layers to today’s violence in Manipur. Land, jobs and economic interests in the region, including the illicit trade of narcotics, human trafficking and arms, makes Manipur one of the most strategic states in India, according to Bhattacharjee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another layer is the armed militias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the most important story is the rise of a civil guerrilla outfit amongst the Meiteis,” Bhattacharjee said, referring to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.outlookindia.com/national/explained-who-are-meitei-radical-group-arambai-tenggol-and-why-did-they-summon-manipur-lawmakers\">Arambai Tenggol\u003c/a>, a radical Meitei group that is allegedly abducting people and threatening the government, according to news reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are the ones who are spearheading the attack against the Kukis,” Bhattacharjee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mob violence has created a situation that Sanjib Baruah, a professor of political studies at Bard College, believes resembles a civil war.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is ample evidence pointing to the fact that the state government bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for this violence,” he wrote in March in \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23210230241235360\">Studies in Indian Politics\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, an academic journal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984055\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984055\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240331-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-031-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A poster of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi hangs on a wall in Delhi, India, on March 31, 2024. The poster advertises the G20 summit, which took place in September 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chitra Ahanthem, an independent journalist, said many people, including the media, have oversimplified the conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not about the majority versus the minority. It’s not about the Hindu versus the Christian. It’s not about the poor tribal versus the entitled, majority community,” she said. “It’s much worse than that because the real reason is just too murky.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes it comes down to geopolitics and India’s business interests in Myanmar, where a civil war has been raging since the military coup in 2021. She said the conflict in Manipur provides a reason for the central government to activate more forces in the region, which is useful for India to defend itself against China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahanthem was in Manipur in November to aid in the relief work. Because she is Meitei, she was only able to visit Meitei camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are people who have committed suicides inside relief camps because they don’t see a future,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People from the Meitei community in Delhi who have spoken out critically against the state government have had their homes in Manipur attacked by local militia, she said. Because of the retaliation tactics, many Meiteis in Delhi contacted by KQED said they did not want to speak to the media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Society is on its back foot when you are not allowed to ask questions. And that’s exactly where Manipur is,” Ahanthem said. “That’s exactly where India is — that you cannot ask questions anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984058\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984058\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240330-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-025-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tara Hangzo buys vegetables from a shop owner from the Naga tribal community in Manipur in the Munirka neighborhood of Delhi, India, on March 30, 2024. “Will I ever have peace of mind? Will my community ever have a peace of mind? … Will we trust them, [Meitei people]?” Hangzo asked. “We will not be able to live together in peace for many years to come.” \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984060\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-014-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tara Hangzo (center right) prays during Good Friday services at the Evangelical Baptist Convention Church in Delhi, India, on March 29, 2024. Hangzo belongs to the predominantly Christian Kuki tribal community. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘At least we have one another here’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tara Hangzo’s life has drastically changed since coming to Delhi. It’s not just the extreme heat and cooler weather but also the water and food. Even the rice tastes different, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have very special rice. It’s almost sticky,” said Tara Hangzo, who continues to participate in the protest movement. “Everything was so natural and so fresh. We were living in a lap of nature.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240329-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-018-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ching Songput, daughter of Madhumati Khwairakpam, prepares tea in her kitchen in Delhi, India, on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She stops and looks at the stands on the side of the road to see if there are any items native to Manipur. She spends most of her time taking care of Khwairakpam and Junia Hangzo, her younger sister who has Down syndrome, with the help of her sister-in-law, whose husband died several years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ching Songput, Khwairakpam’s oldest daughter who is in Delhi for cancer treatment, doesn’t mind that she lost most of the material things like clothes and jewelry, but she wishes she still had the photo albums and videos from when her three daughters were young. Those were lost when the family’s compound was ransacked. The only photo recovered is of her mother and father, which is now in Khwairakpam’s Delhi apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For nearly a week, 11 members of the family shared Songput’s three-bedroom apartment. The family is devout Christian and has formed friendships with many people in the Kuki Christian community in Delhi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a church, so we get busy with that,” Songput said. “We miss what we used to have in Imphal. But at least we have one another here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984063\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240327-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-010-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Ching Songput, Tara Hangzo, and Junia Hangzo shop for food at a market in Delhi, India, on March 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11984064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11984064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240326-ManipurIndia-BethLaBerge-001-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tara Hangzo (right) and her sister Junia Hangzo walk through Delhi, India, on March 26, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On May 3, a mob rushed into a tribal area in the Indian state of Manipur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They started screaming ‘Kill Kuki, Kill Kuki’ and started burning our church,” Niang Hangzo, a San José resident who immigrated to the United States in 1990, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hangzo was born and raised in Manipur. Nestled in the mountains of northeast India, Manipur, which borders Myanmar, is about the size of New Hampshire and has a population of 3.7 million people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty of Hangzo’s family members used to live in this region, which is currently engulfed in violent conflict. At least 150 people have died as a result and more than 60,000 were displaced, according to the International Crisis Group. Those displaced include Hangzo’s 86-year-old mother, six of Hangzo’s siblings and several cousins who are now in Delhi, more than 1,500 miles from their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The violence erupted after a local court ruling awarded government benefits to the Meitei, a mostly Hindu community that maintains a majority in the area. The Kuki tribal community, who are mostly Christian and represent the minority faction, protested. That prompted the waves of armed Meitei mobs that are unofficially supported by the state government, according to activists and human rights groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, which is in charge of India’s central government, has stoked politically motivated policies promoting Hindu majoritarianism, according to Human Rights Watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bloodshed is resonating within the large Indian diaspora in the Bay Area. Rallies, hunger strikes and educational Zoom meetings were held to raise awareness of the persecution of the Kuki community in Manipur.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Niang Hangzo, co-founder, North American Manipur Tribal Association\"]‘They had to run for their lives with just the clothes on their back.’[/pullquote]Hangzo, like most of her family in India, is a member of the Kuki, which is sometimes referred to as Kuki-Zomi or Kuki-Zo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the mob burned the church, Hangzo’s family hid in a local hotel. They watched the growing mob outside on the security camera before escaping to an army camp. Hangzo and others convinced them to leave the region by plane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They had to run for their lives with just the clothes on their back,” said Hangzo, who works as an engineer in the tech industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With luck and help from people Hangzo describes as “angels,” the family made it safely out of the region. Images from the local news channel showed their homes looted and burned. Eleven members are now crowded in a three-bedroom apartment in New Delhi, India’s capital. Despite leaving all their possessions behind, Hangzo said they feel fortunate to have made it out alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the violence broke out in Manipur, Hangzo has dedicated her time to informing people about the conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is one of the founding members of the North American Manipur Tribal Association, a national organization formed to promote awareness of the hill tribes of Manipur in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group wrote letters to President Joe Biden, asking him to raise the issue when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the U.S. at the end of June. NAMTA also coordinated efforts with the Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, as well as Indian Christian organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s not much we can do on our own, but I think the atrocities and the stories from Manipur have shaken people and shaken the conscience of other people,” Hangzo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indian communities in the Bay Area held rallies in Oakland, Palo Alto and Fremont after a video showing two Kuki women being assaulted in public went viral in India. Members of the Muslim, Sikh and Dalit communities in the Bay Area also combined efforts to pressure congressional leaders to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957326\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1620px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957326\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of people stands outdoors in front of a building holding signs while one person speaks into a megaphone.\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED.jpg 1620w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1620px) 100vw, 1620px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shan Sankaran (left) stands alongside Niang Hangzo (right) at a rally outside of Oakland City Hall on July 23, 2023. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of North American Manipur Tribal Association.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pieter Friedrich and Shan Sankaran protested the treatment of the Kuki with a hunger strike. Friedrich, a human rights advocate, ended his fast after nine days at the request of NAMTA and the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, Sankaran, a Sunnyvale resident, ended his hunger strike after 10 days. Sankaran said if the central government wanted the crisis under control, they would’ve taken action earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not the first incident under this administration,” said Sankaran, recalling how Modi was denied a visa to the U.S. for several years for “severe violations of religious freedom.”[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Niang Hangzo, co-founder, North American Manipur Tribal Association\"]‘It’s very difficult living in sort of limbo for them and for us. We have become so embroiled in what’s happening out there that that’s become our reality more than what’s going on here.’[/pullquote] Friedrich, who has written extensively on Hindu nationalism, said “what is happening in Manipur is being driven by the Hindutva movement in India,” which is the political ideology that believes in Hindu supremacy and that India’s identity is inseparable from the Hindu religion. Friedrich wants Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) to publicly condemn the violence in Manipur on the House floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve consistently used my position in Congress to defend human rights and admire the activists who work to drive change on these important issues,” Khanna told KQED in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that he “condemns all violence against civilians or places of worship in Manipur and speaks out on those issues whenever I can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hangzo wants to see politicians “raise the humanitarian issue of the ethnic cleansing of the Kuki-Zomi and the genocide that is in progress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their lands are being seized,” she said of the Kuki.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hangzo gets up every morning and routinely checks news and messages to see what happened the night before. Her mother wants to return to Manipur and be among familiar surroundings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult living in sort of limbo for them and for us,” said Hangzo, who plans to go to India in December. “We have become so embroiled in what’s happening out there that that’s become our reality more than what’s going on here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Hangzo, like most of her family in India, is a member of the Kuki, which is sometimes referred to as Kuki-Zomi or Kuki-Zo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the mob burned the church, Hangzo’s family hid in a local hotel. They watched the growing mob outside on the security camera before escaping to an army camp. Hangzo and others convinced them to leave the region by plane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They had to run for their lives with just the clothes on their back,” said Hangzo, who works as an engineer in the tech industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With luck and help from people Hangzo describes as “angels,” the family made it safely out of the region. Images from the local news channel showed their homes looted and burned. Eleven members are now crowded in a three-bedroom apartment in New Delhi, India’s capital. Despite leaving all their possessions behind, Hangzo said they feel fortunate to have made it out alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the violence broke out in Manipur, Hangzo has dedicated her time to informing people about the conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is one of the founding members of the North American Manipur Tribal Association, a national organization formed to promote awareness of the hill tribes of Manipur in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group wrote letters to President Joe Biden, asking him to raise the issue when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the U.S. at the end of June. NAMTA also coordinated efforts with the Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, as well as Indian Christian organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s not much we can do on our own, but I think the atrocities and the stories from Manipur have shaken people and shaken the conscience of other people,” Hangzo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indian communities in the Bay Area held rallies in Oakland, Palo Alto and Fremont after a video showing two Kuki women being assaulted in public went viral in India. Members of the Muslim, Sikh and Dalit communities in the Bay Area also combined efforts to pressure congressional leaders to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957326\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1620px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957326\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of people stands outdoors in front of a building holding signs while one person speaks into a megaphone.\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED.jpg 1620w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230803-Manipur-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1620px) 100vw, 1620px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shan Sankaran (left) stands alongside Niang Hangzo (right) at a rally outside of Oakland City Hall on July 23, 2023. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of North American Manipur Tribal Association.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pieter Friedrich and Shan Sankaran protested the treatment of the Kuki with a hunger strike. Friedrich, a human rights advocate, ended his fast after nine days at the request of NAMTA and the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, Sankaran, a Sunnyvale resident, ended his hunger strike after 10 days. Sankaran said if the central government wanted the crisis under control, they would’ve taken action earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not the first incident under this administration,” said Sankaran, recalling how Modi was denied a visa to the U.S. for several years for “severe violations of religious freedom.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/sundaymusicdrop\">The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team.\u003c/a> In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahesh Kale, a student of Indian classical vocal Hindustani music, shares the song “Aruni Kirani.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kale, who now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home, was raised in Pune, India, and studied with Purushottam Gangurde, a disciple of Guru Pandit Yeshwantbua Joshi. He says he finds inner peace through music. In part he was inspired by his mother, who is also a singer, though he is the first professional musician in the family.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Mahesh Kale, Indian classical singer \"]‘It’s not something you do a certain amount of time or day or a few times a week, but it is a way of life.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In India, he was trained in the “gurukul system, where there is no syllabus, no fixed number of years … It’s an ongoing practice,” he said. He would get up at 3:45 in the morning and start singing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The song that he shares with KQED is from the Marathi-language play \u003cem>Katyar Kaljat Ghusali\u003c/em> (which translates to \u003cem>A Dagger Through the Heart\u003c/em>), which was turned into a film by the same name. “This song actually kind of depicts the victory of music over egos,” Kale said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015 he received India’s National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for a classical piece he performed in \u003cem>Katyar Kaljat Ghusali\u003c/em>. Since then he’s been focusing on his music. “I guess the cosmos allowed me the space that I wanted and things started to come together,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he performs, Kale wants to make sure he holds on to the “cultural uniqueness of the traditional art,” but also “make sure that it still is contextually relevant for people today.” And he says that the Bay Area, because of its diversity and inclusion, is a wonderful seat to nurture what is unique and beautiful about Indian classical music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though he plays for people around the world, Kale sees a commonality through emotions. “The audiences are different when they start the experience of the musical performance. But all of us, irrespective of our cultural identity, if we are happy, we smile, if we are sad, we cry. And that is the baseline,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kale thinks of himself as a tour guide, taking the audience through a musical journey. “I like to keep it light. I like to communicate with my audience, make sure that they are a part of my musical journey,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, he founded a nonprofit organization called \u003ca href=\"http://www.icmafoundation.org/mission.html\">Indian Classical Music and Arts Foundation\u003c/a>, to focus on preserving and celebrating this form of music. Kale also teaches music to a number of students throughout the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Kale, his music and practice are not confined to specific times of day. “It’s not something you do a certain amount of time or day or a few times a week, but it is a way of life,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’ll be kicking off his U.S. tour with his first post-pandemic solo concert on March 18, 2023, at 5 p.m. at the \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/venue/santa-clara-convention-center-theater-5001-great-america-pkwy-santa-clara-ca-95054/\">Santa Clara Convention Center Theater\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>As the South Asian diaspora continues to witness the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/india-science-coronavirus-business-health-c2a72c4d2ab29aa163e785ca98181023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">horrific scenes\u003c/a> of mass funeral pyres and overrun hospitals in India, many in the Bay Area and across the country are finding ways to contribute to ongoing relief efforts rooted in community-based organizations in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re pioneering creative ways of providing help and assistance, like cross-continental video chats for doctor’s visits. As the country’s official death toll nears 220,000, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/04/30/992451165/india-is-counting-thousands-of-daily-covid-deaths-how-many-is-it-missing\">with many saying that is an undercount\u003c/a>, the need to help is only mounting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is totally surreal,” said Harish Ramadas, president of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of \u003ca href=\"https://aidindia.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Association for India’s Development\u003c/a>, on the contrast between the ease of getting a vaccine in the Bay Area and the pain and suffering in many parts of India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramadas said he and many fellow AID volunteers cope with the disconnect between their lives in the rapidly reopening Bay Area and horrors in India by volunteering and fundraising as much as possible, and using their privileged position to advocate on behalf of others.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Zain Alam, co-creator of Doctors in Diaspora\"]‘We have the access to technology, we have WhatsApp, we have phones, we have the internet, we can be creative and make a difference.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AID is a mainly volunteer-run organization that has supported traditional development efforts in India for nearly 30 years. Ramadas said their focus is on grassroots partnerships, working in areas of social and environmental justice, health care, education and labor rights. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We learn from them and the solutions that we help implement are all community-driven as opposed to a sort of top-down, paternalistic colonial approach,” Ramadas said. AID works directly with communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shrinaath Chidambaram, who lives in Los Altos, is on the board of directors for AID. For him, it’s about more than the current news media cycle. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think first thing is for people to just go beyond the headlines and recognize that this is a multidimensional problem,” he said. “Hospital scenes and the crematorium scenes are heartbreaking, but there is a much bigger crisis yet to come,” Chidambaram said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AID is taking a multipronged approach — looking at four main aspects: oxygen shortages, supporting medical help desks, helping people stay home and promoting vaccine awareness. For \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/31/822642382/coronavirus-lockdown-sends-migrant-workers-on-a-long-and-risky-trip-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">daily wage earners, and migrant laborers\u003c/a>, earning enough money and buying supplies in advance can be a challenge and nearly impossible in some cases. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If not controlled in some form, it’s going to really lead to a disaster of epic proportions,” Chidambaram said of COVID-19 in India. The impact is already being \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/india-europe-business-global-trade-coronavirus-e95f0515b68ed20ea1f0a53bdea3ffae\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">felt in neighboring Bangladesh\u003c/a>, as the federal government bans vaccine exports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While AID has existed for many years and is a reliable grassroots organization serving many parts of India, others in the Bay Area are focusing donations and assistance to specific marginalized communities, like the transgender community, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/04/18/304548675/a-journey-of-pain-and-beauty-on-becoming-transgender-in-india\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>hijra\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we recognize that everybody is in panic and running around, our community is being left behind,” Anjali Rimi told KQED. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are starving,” Rimi said of the trans community in India. “Other communities still have access to the internet to be able to order delivery or be able to go out.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rimi is encouraging people to give to a specific GoFundMe, \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-indian-trans-lives-covid-relief\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Save Indian Trans Lives: COVID Relief\u003c/a>, organized by \u003ca href=\"https://parivarbayarea.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Parivar Bay Area\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have now over 6,000 trans folks that have reached out for help,” Rimi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to Bay Area efforts, newer initiatives have popped up across the country in the last week to meet the immediate needs of those in search of doctors and medical attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zain Alam, along with members of the South Asian diaspora mostly based in New York, started \u003ca href=\"http://doctorsindiaspora.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doctors in Diaspora\u003c/a> just last week to connect volunteer doctors virtually to people in India facing a medical professional shortages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were really, just really, really struck by what we were hearing from our families and India about the total lack of a response on the part of the state there,” Alam said. They are urging doctors from the Indian diaspora to sign up, as well as doctors in less impacted locations in India. Based on availability, doctors are then matched with those needing assistance in India for remote consultations. Others interested in supporting the project are also welcome, and Alam said they’ve just had the first round of calls this weekend. But they will soon be using an app designed for the pandemic, which will allow doctors and patients to speak without the need to reveal personal contact information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alam said the initial calls between doctors and patients underlined how critical this work is. Though they estimated each call would be closer to 10 minutes, Alam said most were closer to 20 minutes. “There’s just not enough medical professionals in India right now to speak to people — they don’t have time to talk to anyone,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alam and others involved in the project hope to take advantage of the wealth, knowledge and resources of the diaspora. “We have a very specific ability to speak to the needs in India right now,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he acknowledged that often the American way to give aid is “throwing money at a problem,” he said, “this is a way that we can give that is a little bit more pointed than just giving money.” [aside tag=\"india, covid\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this case, the ease in which many in India and abroad are able to access technology makes the project possible. “We have the access to technology, we have WhatsApp, we have phones, we have the Internet, we can be creative and make a difference,” Alam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the Bay Area, members of AID are also suggesting those in the U.S. lobby members of Congress to get the federal government \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/01/05/953653373/some-experts-say-temporary-halt-on-drug-patents-is-needed-to-stop-pandemic-world\">to release vaccine patents\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a situation where we really have a moral obligation to just put in everything we’ve got to help the people of India and other parts of the world that are in similarly difficult situations,” Ramadas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AID is taking a multipronged approach — looking at four main aspects: oxygen shortages, supporting medical help desks, helping people stay home and promoting vaccine awareness. For \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/31/822642382/coronavirus-lockdown-sends-migrant-workers-on-a-long-and-risky-trip-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">daily wage earners, and migrant laborers\u003c/a>, earning enough money and buying supplies in advance can be a challenge and nearly impossible in some cases. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If not controlled in some form, it’s going to really lead to a disaster of epic proportions,” Chidambaram said of COVID-19 in India. The impact is already being \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/india-europe-business-global-trade-coronavirus-e95f0515b68ed20ea1f0a53bdea3ffae\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">felt in neighboring Bangladesh\u003c/a>, as the federal government bans vaccine exports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While AID has existed for many years and is a reliable grassroots organization serving many parts of India, others in the Bay Area are focusing donations and assistance to specific marginalized communities, like the transgender community, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/04/18/304548675/a-journey-of-pain-and-beauty-on-becoming-transgender-in-india\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>hijra\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we recognize that everybody is in panic and running around, our community is being left behind,” Anjali Rimi told KQED. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are starving,” Rimi said of the trans community in India. “Other communities still have access to the internet to be able to order delivery or be able to go out.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rimi is encouraging people to give to a specific GoFundMe, \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-indian-trans-lives-covid-relief\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Save Indian Trans Lives: COVID Relief\u003c/a>, organized by \u003ca href=\"https://parivarbayarea.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Parivar Bay Area\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have now over 6,000 trans folks that have reached out for help,” Rimi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to Bay Area efforts, newer initiatives have popped up across the country in the last week to meet the immediate needs of those in search of doctors and medical attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zain Alam, along with members of the South Asian diaspora mostly based in New York, started \u003ca href=\"http://doctorsindiaspora.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doctors in Diaspora\u003c/a> just last week to connect volunteer doctors virtually to people in India facing a medical professional shortages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were really, just really, really struck by what we were hearing from our families and India about the total lack of a response on the part of the state there,” Alam said. They are urging doctors from the Indian diaspora to sign up, as well as doctors in less impacted locations in India. Based on availability, doctors are then matched with those needing assistance in India for remote consultations. Others interested in supporting the project are also welcome, and Alam said they’ve just had the first round of calls this weekend. But they will soon be using an app designed for the pandemic, which will allow doctors and patients to speak without the need to reveal personal contact information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alam said the initial calls between doctors and patients underlined how critical this work is. Though they estimated each call would be closer to 10 minutes, Alam said most were closer to 20 minutes. “There’s just not enough medical professionals in India right now to speak to people — they don’t have time to talk to anyone,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alam and others involved in the project hope to take advantage of the wealth, knowledge and resources of the diaspora. “We have a very specific ability to speak to the needs in India right now,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he acknowledged that often the American way to give aid is “throwing money at a problem,” he said, “this is a way that we can give that is a little bit more pointed than just giving money.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this case, the ease in which many in India and abroad are able to access technology makes the project possible. “We have the access to technology, we have WhatsApp, we have phones, we have the Internet, we can be creative and make a difference,” Alam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the Bay Area, members of AID are also suggesting those in the U.S. lobby members of Congress to get the federal government \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/01/05/953653373/some-experts-say-temporary-halt-on-drug-patents-is-needed-to-stop-pandemic-world\">to release vaccine patents\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a situation where we really have a moral obligation to just put in everything we’ve got to help the people of India and other parts of the world that are in similarly difficult situations,” Ramadas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "'Each Hour Matters': Bay Area Couple Fundraises for India's Oxygen Crisis",
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"headTitle": "‘Each Hour Matters’: Bay Area Couple Fundraises for India’s Oxygen Crisis | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For the fifth straight day, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-india-coronavirus-1bda2318594d65be400074da41fa13c6\">India set a global daily record of new coronavirus infections\u003c/a> on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social media has been filled with desperate pleas from those in India seeking hospital beds and oxygen concentrators. \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloombergquint.com/coronavirus-outbreak/hope-and-heartbreak-on-indian-covid-twitter\">One journalist, Vinay Srivastava, even live-tweeted his declining oxygen levels until he died\u003c/a>. And on Sunday, the National Security Council announced that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/25/990676453/u-s-pledges-medical-aid-to-india-where-covid-19-is-overwhelming-hospitals\">the United States will now make more medical aid available to India\u003c/a> in an effort to fight the spike in COVID-19 cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Indians and Indian Americans in the Bay Area, what many are experiencing in daily life — the excitement of getting the vaccine and reopening businesses — contrasts starkly with the reality of family and friends sick and dying in New Delhi and other parts of the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every Indian you speak to will tell you we know somebody who has passed away in the last few days because they weren’t able to find a hospital to take them — or they weren’t able to get access to oxygen,” said Palo Alto resident Kanika Mediratta, who has family and friends in New Delhi. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Kanika Mediratta, started CovidReliefIndia.com\"]‘Every Indian you speak to will tell you we know somebody who has passed away in the last few days because they weren’t able to find a hospital to take them — or they weren’t able to get access to oxygen.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just 10 minutes ago I got a call from one of my very close friends asking if we knew of any supply for a patient [in India] who has oxygen only for the next three hours,” Mediratta said. “Without that, they will die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mediratta’s brother-in-law — her husband Rohit’s brother — is a neurosurgeon at Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, and told the Palo Alto couple of his firsthand experiences with the region’s severe oxygen shortage that was being mirrored across India. So the Medirattas decided to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They started a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/oxygen-concentrators-for-delhi?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GoFundMe\u003c/a> to raise money for the \u003ca href=\"https://savelifefoundation.org/covid19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Save Life Foundation,\u003c/a> a nonprofit working with the New Delhi government. In about 48 hours they raised enough money to procure 200 units of oxygen. They’ve also created the website \u003ca href=\"http://covidreliefindia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CovidReliefIndia.com\u003c/a> which explains the severity of India’s need for oxygen and \u003ca href=\"http://covidreliefindia.com/faqs/\">how people can help\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expected that this first shipment of oxygen units will start reaching the people in need in public hospitals “in the next week or so,” said Rohit Mediratta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their campaign has been amplified by people including Bay Area Congressman Ro Khanna, whose California District 17 encompasses Silicon Valley. Thus far, through their networks, the couple say they’ve seen people donating money from around the world — Australia, UK, the Middle East. “People who know people, who know people, have been contacting us,” Kanika Mediratta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1385794794186813443?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the \u003ca href=\"https://savelifefoundation.org/covid19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Save Life Foundation,\u003c/a> the Medirattas are also directing donations to the humanitarian nonprofit organization \u003ca href=\"https://www.sewausa.org/Kanikas-Campaign-for-COVID-19-Relief-India\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sewa International\u003c/a>. For those unsure which place to donate to, Kanika Mediratta gave some guidance: “If you’re looking to donate specifically for the Delhi region, then Save Life Foundation is working with the Delhi government, and is probably the biggest impact that we will have,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Bay Area residents wanting their donations to go beyond government agencies, or into other cities and regions in India, Sewa International is a good choice, say the Medirattas. Both organizations are registered nonprofits in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thousands of people are dying every single day” in India, said Gitesh Desai, a Texas-based spokesperson for Sewa International on the COVID-19 crisis. According to Johns Hopkins University data, \u003ca href=\"https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/india\">on April 25 alone there were 2,812 deaths\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desai said Sewa International is buying oxygen concentrators and has already bought 400 that will be given to hospitals in India. With additional funds raised, Desai said they will be providing food and medicine to families as well as other basic needs to orphanages and senior citizen homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all want our money to get used in the best way possible and as quickly as possible, because each hour matters right now,” Kanika Mediratta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that it’s not just hours that count right now — it’s minutes. “We don’t have till Monday morning, or Tuesday morning, for action to be taken. If you have the capacity to contribute, to participate, to volunteer, we need the help and we need it now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have a moment to lose right now,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whatever we can do to help, if we can do anything at all, it’s still not enough,” her husband Rohit added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Severity of COVID-19 in India\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As of April 25, the country had over 16.9 million recorded cases, second behind only the United States. \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-india-religion-coronavirus-c644fc9eb09beb04e16d0215a6693886\">The Health Ministry reported another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours\u003c/a>, pushing India’s fatalities to 192,311.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet experts say this toll could be a huge undercount, as suspected cases are not included, and many COVID-19 deaths are being attributed to underlying conditions. [aside tag=\"india, coronavirus\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unfolding crisis is most visceral in India’s overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, and in heartbreaking images of gasping patients dying on their way to hospitals due to lack of oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burial grounds in the capital New Delhi are running out of space. The situation is equally grim at unbearably full hospitals, where desperate people are dying in line — sometimes on the roads outside — waiting to see doctors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health officials are scrambling to expand critical care units and stock up on dwindling supplies of oxygen. Hospitals and patients alike are struggling to procure scarce medical equipment that’s being sold on the black market at an exponential markup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drama is in direct contrast with \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-india-religion-coronavirus-c644fc9eb09beb04e16d0215a6693886\">government claims that “nobody in the country was left without oxygen,”\u003c/a> in a statement made Saturday by India’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta before the Delhi High Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The breakdown is a stark failure for a country whose prime minister only in January had declared victory over COVID-19, and which boasted of being the “world’s pharmacy” as a global producer of vaccines and a model for other developing nations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article includes additional reporting from the Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For the fifth straight day, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-india-coronavirus-1bda2318594d65be400074da41fa13c6\">India set a global daily record of new coronavirus infections\u003c/a> on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social media has been filled with desperate pleas from those in India seeking hospital beds and oxygen concentrators. \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloombergquint.com/coronavirus-outbreak/hope-and-heartbreak-on-indian-covid-twitter\">One journalist, Vinay Srivastava, even live-tweeted his declining oxygen levels until he died\u003c/a>. And on Sunday, the National Security Council announced that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/25/990676453/u-s-pledges-medical-aid-to-india-where-covid-19-is-overwhelming-hospitals\">the United States will now make more medical aid available to India\u003c/a> in an effort to fight the spike in COVID-19 cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Indians and Indian Americans in the Bay Area, what many are experiencing in daily life — the excitement of getting the vaccine and reopening businesses — contrasts starkly with the reality of family and friends sick and dying in New Delhi and other parts of the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every Indian you speak to will tell you we know somebody who has passed away in the last few days because they weren’t able to find a hospital to take them — or they weren’t able to get access to oxygen,” said Palo Alto resident Kanika Mediratta, who has family and friends in New Delhi. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just 10 minutes ago I got a call from one of my very close friends asking if we knew of any supply for a patient [in India] who has oxygen only for the next three hours,” Mediratta said. “Without that, they will die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mediratta’s brother-in-law — her husband Rohit’s brother — is a neurosurgeon at Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, and told the Palo Alto couple of his firsthand experiences with the region’s severe oxygen shortage that was being mirrored across India. So the Medirattas decided to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They started a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/oxygen-concentrators-for-delhi?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GoFundMe\u003c/a> to raise money for the \u003ca href=\"https://savelifefoundation.org/covid19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Save Life Foundation,\u003c/a> a nonprofit working with the New Delhi government. In about 48 hours they raised enough money to procure 200 units of oxygen. They’ve also created the website \u003ca href=\"http://covidreliefindia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CovidReliefIndia.com\u003c/a> which explains the severity of India’s need for oxygen and \u003ca href=\"http://covidreliefindia.com/faqs/\">how people can help\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expected that this first shipment of oxygen units will start reaching the people in need in public hospitals “in the next week or so,” said Rohit Mediratta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their campaign has been amplified by people including Bay Area Congressman Ro Khanna, whose California District 17 encompasses Silicon Valley. Thus far, through their networks, the couple say they’ve seen people donating money from around the world — Australia, UK, the Middle East. “People who know people, who know people, have been contacting us,” Kanika Mediratta said.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>In addition to the \u003ca href=\"https://savelifefoundation.org/covid19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Save Life Foundation,\u003c/a> the Medirattas are also directing donations to the humanitarian nonprofit organization \u003ca href=\"https://www.sewausa.org/Kanikas-Campaign-for-COVID-19-Relief-India\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sewa International\u003c/a>. For those unsure which place to donate to, Kanika Mediratta gave some guidance: “If you’re looking to donate specifically for the Delhi region, then Save Life Foundation is working with the Delhi government, and is probably the biggest impact that we will have,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Bay Area residents wanting their donations to go beyond government agencies, or into other cities and regions in India, Sewa International is a good choice, say the Medirattas. Both organizations are registered nonprofits in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thousands of people are dying every single day” in India, said Gitesh Desai, a Texas-based spokesperson for Sewa International on the COVID-19 crisis. According to Johns Hopkins University data, \u003ca href=\"https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/india\">on April 25 alone there were 2,812 deaths\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desai said Sewa International is buying oxygen concentrators and has already bought 400 that will be given to hospitals in India. With additional funds raised, Desai said they will be providing food and medicine to families as well as other basic needs to orphanages and senior citizen homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all want our money to get used in the best way possible and as quickly as possible, because each hour matters right now,” Kanika Mediratta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that it’s not just hours that count right now — it’s minutes. “We don’t have till Monday morning, or Tuesday morning, for action to be taken. If you have the capacity to contribute, to participate, to volunteer, we need the help and we need it now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have a moment to lose right now,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whatever we can do to help, if we can do anything at all, it’s still not enough,” her husband Rohit added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Severity of COVID-19 in India\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As of April 25, the country had over 16.9 million recorded cases, second behind only the United States. \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-india-religion-coronavirus-c644fc9eb09beb04e16d0215a6693886\">The Health Ministry reported another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours\u003c/a>, pushing India’s fatalities to 192,311.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet experts say this toll could be a huge undercount, as suspected cases are not included, and many COVID-19 deaths are being attributed to underlying conditions. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unfolding crisis is most visceral in India’s overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, and in heartbreaking images of gasping patients dying on their way to hospitals due to lack of oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burial grounds in the capital New Delhi are running out of space. The situation is equally grim at unbearably full hospitals, where desperate people are dying in line — sometimes on the roads outside — waiting to see doctors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health officials are scrambling to expand critical care units and stock up on dwindling supplies of oxygen. Hospitals and patients alike are struggling to procure scarce medical equipment that’s being sold on the black market at an exponential markup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drama is in direct contrast with \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-india-religion-coronavirus-c644fc9eb09beb04e16d0215a6693886\">government claims that “nobody in the country was left without oxygen,”\u003c/a> in a statement made Saturday by India’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta before the Delhi High Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The breakdown is a stark failure for a country whose prime minister only in January had declared victory over COVID-19, and which boasted of being the “world’s pharmacy” as a global producer of vaccines and a model for other developing nations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article includes additional reporting from the Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "why-farmers-drove-a-tractor-to-protest-at-the-indian-consulate-in-san-francisco",
"title": "Why Farmers Drove a Tractor to Protest at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco",
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"headTitle": "Why Farmers Drove a Tractor to Protest at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For more than a week, hundreds of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/943082236/indias-farmers-man-barricades-in-delhi-protesting-new-agriculture-laws\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">thousands of farmers\u003c/a> have been protesting outside India’s capital of New Delhi. Support for the farmers extended worldwide, including the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Saturday, Dec. 5, a solidarity protest rolled through the Bay Area — first to Oakland, and then across the Bay Bridge to rally in front of the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, and then back to Oakland. Organized in part by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.jakara.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jakara Movement\u003c/a>, people riding in the car caravan waved flags, honked horns and held signs in solidarity with farmers in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a tractor as well — one featured in social media posts and photos from the protest, drawing curious looks from many. Bay Area dwellers are used to seeing protests, but the tractor was an unusual sight for most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Mallika Kaur, author\"]‘The spark might be the new laws, but the pain and outrage is decades old and due to devastating policies that have taken too many lives the [Indian] state considers expendable.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some Californians may be unclear on what this is all about, but as Mallika Kaur explains, the roots of solidarity run deep. Kaur is a lawyer and author of “\u003ca href=\"https://punjabconflict.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper\u003c/a>,” and teaches at UC Berkeley School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Kaur said, Sikh Americans — often quickly identified by men who wear turbans, “have been an active part of California’s economy and culture for more than 125 years, and many of the 500,000 Sikhs who reside in the United States can trace their immediate families back to one state in India: Punjab … many to conflict-era roots, which led to asylees and migrants in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849933\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849933\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sisters Hardeep and Sukhpreet Gill holds a sign that from their car during a caravan rally in front of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020, in solidarity with Indian farmers. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many Sikh Californians were on the Bay Bridge Saturday, delaying your commute for sure, said Kaur, but they were doing so “in solidarity with millions sleeping on cold concrete outside New Delhi, worried that their farms, their lives will soon become even more desperate than before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED asked Kaur to explain more about what this movement means for farmers in India, and Sikh Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849939\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849939\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>KQED’s Lakshmi Sarah: For a Bay Area audience who may not have an understanding of what’s going on in India, what is happening?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mallika Kaur:\u003c/strong> The protest outside India’s capital, New Delhi, is a protest against new farmer laws passed by the central, think federal, government in India. These laws privatize agriculture in unprecedented ways. They are seen as an existential threat to marginal and small farmers — the majority of farmers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers are now living on the roads, camping behind barbed wires and trenches set up by the government, to block the farmers from entering Delhi. At first, they were met with brute force; tear-gassed, water-cannoned in frigid November; beaten — but these images and videos went viral soon, and the state has stalled use of force. For now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849944\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849944\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The farmer caravan started in the Indian state of Punjab, and swelled while traveling through the neighboring state of Haryana, and is now at the Haryana-Delhi border. It’s been growing over the course of the past week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A young woman protestor and student, Harpreet Kaur, told me on the phone yesterday that the camp at one of the five entry points to Delhi is now 20 kilometers long (over 12 miles), across a four-lane highway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before the new laws, the farmers faced dire ecological and economic circumstances due to long-standing Indian government policies. But farming is their only source of livelihood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849938\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849938\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Balraj Singh speaks during a rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why is this important to you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is a dangerous and deeply sad truth: The farmers are protesting to return to a status quo in which thousands of them kill themselves out of desperation already. One expert I have worked with estimates 5,000 farmer suicides in Punjab a year. That was without the pandemic pressures or the new laws. I’ve followed the lives of widows of such farmers for a while now, over a decade. Back home in Punjab, in many of these villages, women tell the story of the life, the depression levels, the high rates of addiction, the domestic violence, that come with the farming plight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849975\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849975\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Four men from Fresno stand outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The men may keep a stoic front, the stereotype required of them, but I’ve witnessed countless of them cry on being asked about their situation and hopes for the future. Those desperate tears fuel these protests in fact. As much as the collective sense of solidarity and strength does right now. The nuances of the new laws aside, for economists to debate, the protests find synergy with non-farming Indian citizens, too, because of the way these laws have been passed — in the midst of the pandemic; the way in which the stakeholders most affected, farmers, were never consulted; and in the way their protests, since September, but in their home state of Punjab, away from New Delhi, have been entirely ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Modi government has easily shrugged, saying farmers are resisting needed changes for the often touted “development” in Modi’s story of India. But what the government is not saying is that the changes are only pro-business, and are too drastic and too high-handed to be pro-farmer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849937\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849937\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’ve written a book, so you are very knowledgeable on these topics, but why in the Bay Area and why now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated 10,000 Sikh Americans traveling from as far as Yuba City to Los Angeles converged on the Bay Area for an in-vehicle, socially distanced caravan protest to bring national attention to the ongoing human rights crisis playing out in Delhi. Organized largely by youth — \u003ca href=\"https://www.jakara.org/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jakara\u003c/a> and Sikh student organizations in California — the caravan attracted people of all walks, including people who resonate deeply with (Black Lives Matter) caravans they were part of just months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849942\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849942\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harry Singh speaks during a rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These protests are reflecting long pent-up traumas and desperation. My book released last year, on the human rights defenders through the bloody Punjab conflict of the ’80s and ’90s, that unfolded worst for Sikhs in rural Punjab, is subtitled “The Wheat Fields Still Whisper.” Many of those whispers, the inter-generational traumas, are being loudly heard now, even by the youngest protesters camping outside New Delhi today. The spark might be the new laws, but the pain and outrage is decades old and due to devastating policies that have taken too many lives the state considers expendable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new laws have poked at a deep trust deficit. They allow big corporations to be unfettered buyers against whom small farmers believe, for very good reason, that they’ll have very little negotiating power. But on top of that, the laws introduce a dispute resolution system that bypasses civil courts. So this new legalized impunity is perceived as a very cruel joke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849941\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849941\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How you suggest people get involved or educate themselves further?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Very telling, (is how) photos and videos of the protests at the doorsteps of New Delhi show how peaceful it is, yet how the protesters are in a precarious position. Share their stories, their voices on social media and with your local government representatives. And keep pressure to ensure there is actual discourse and not retribution against protesters, whether now or later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/Karan_Singhs/status/1303288309628768257\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve seen too often how protests can turn sideways, with disastrous consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can put to good use what you’ve learned this year about the importance of preserving the right to protest and conscientious citizen-activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849940\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849940\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jasroop Gill holds a flag that says ‘Farmers Protest’ during a car caravan rally in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020, in support of farmers in India. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Why Farmers Drove a Tractor to Protest at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco | KQED",
"description": "'The spark might be the new laws, but the pain and outrage is decades old and due to devastating policies that have taken too many lives the (Indian) state considers expendable,' Mallika Kaur told KQED.",
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"headline": "Why Farmers Drove a Tractor to Protest at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For more than a week, hundreds of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/943082236/indias-farmers-man-barricades-in-delhi-protesting-new-agriculture-laws\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">thousands of farmers\u003c/a> have been protesting outside India’s capital of New Delhi. Support for the farmers extended worldwide, including the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Saturday, Dec. 5, a solidarity protest rolled through the Bay Area — first to Oakland, and then across the Bay Bridge to rally in front of the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, and then back to Oakland. Organized in part by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.jakara.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jakara Movement\u003c/a>, people riding in the car caravan waved flags, honked horns and held signs in solidarity with farmers in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a tractor as well — one featured in social media posts and photos from the protest, drawing curious looks from many. Bay Area dwellers are used to seeing protests, but the tractor was an unusual sight for most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘The spark might be the new laws, but the pain and outrage is decades old and due to devastating policies that have taken too many lives the [Indian] state considers expendable.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some Californians may be unclear on what this is all about, but as Mallika Kaur explains, the roots of solidarity run deep. Kaur is a lawyer and author of “\u003ca href=\"https://punjabconflict.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper\u003c/a>,” and teaches at UC Berkeley School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Kaur said, Sikh Americans — often quickly identified by men who wear turbans, “have been an active part of California’s economy and culture for more than 125 years, and many of the 500,000 Sikhs who reside in the United States can trace their immediate families back to one state in India: Punjab … many to conflict-era roots, which led to asylees and migrants in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849933\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849933\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46228_050_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sisters Hardeep and Sukhpreet Gill holds a sign that from their car during a caravan rally in front of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020, in solidarity with Indian farmers. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many Sikh Californians were on the Bay Bridge Saturday, delaying your commute for sure, said Kaur, but they were doing so “in solidarity with millions sleeping on cold concrete outside New Delhi, worried that their farms, their lives will soon become even more desperate than before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED asked Kaur to explain more about what this movement means for farmers in India, and Sikh Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849939\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849939\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46194_012_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>KQED’s Lakshmi Sarah: For a Bay Area audience who may not have an understanding of what’s going on in India, what is happening?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mallika Kaur:\u003c/strong> The protest outside India’s capital, New Delhi, is a protest against new farmer laws passed by the central, think federal, government in India. These laws privatize agriculture in unprecedented ways. They are seen as an existential threat to marginal and small farmers — the majority of farmers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers are now living on the roads, camping behind barbed wires and trenches set up by the government, to block the farmers from entering Delhi. At first, they were met with brute force; tear-gassed, water-cannoned in frigid November; beaten — but these images and videos went viral soon, and the state has stalled use of force. For now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849944\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849944\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46189_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The farmer caravan started in the Indian state of Punjab, and swelled while traveling through the neighboring state of Haryana, and is now at the Haryana-Delhi border. It’s been growing over the course of the past week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A young woman protestor and student, Harpreet Kaur, told me on the phone yesterday that the camp at one of the five entry points to Delhi is now 20 kilometers long (over 12 miles), across a four-lane highway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before the new laws, the farmers faced dire ecological and economic circumstances due to long-standing Indian government policies. But farming is their only source of livelihood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849938\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849938\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46202_020_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Balraj Singh speaks during a rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why is this important to you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is a dangerous and deeply sad truth: The farmers are protesting to return to a status quo in which thousands of them kill themselves out of desperation already. One expert I have worked with estimates 5,000 farmer suicides in Punjab a year. That was without the pandemic pressures or the new laws. I’ve followed the lives of widows of such farmers for a while now, over a decade. Back home in Punjab, in many of these villages, women tell the story of the life, the depression levels, the high rates of addiction, the domestic violence, that come with the farming plight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849975\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849975\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46208_026_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Four men from Fresno stand outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The men may keep a stoic front, the stereotype required of them, but I’ve witnessed countless of them cry on being asked about their situation and hopes for the future. Those desperate tears fuel these protests in fact. As much as the collective sense of solidarity and strength does right now. The nuances of the new laws aside, for economists to debate, the protests find synergy with non-farming Indian citizens, too, because of the way these laws have been passed — in the midst of the pandemic; the way in which the stakeholders most affected, farmers, were never consulted; and in the way their protests, since September, but in their home state of Punjab, away from New Delhi, have been entirely ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Modi government has easily shrugged, saying farmers are resisting needed changes for the often touted “development” in Modi’s story of India. But what the government is not saying is that the changes are only pro-business, and are too drastic and too high-handed to be pro-farmer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849937\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849937\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46213_031_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’ve written a book, so you are very knowledgeable on these topics, but why in the Bay Area and why now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated 10,000 Sikh Americans traveling from as far as Yuba City to Los Angeles converged on the Bay Area for an in-vehicle, socially distanced caravan protest to bring national attention to the ongoing human rights crisis playing out in Delhi. Organized largely by youth — \u003ca href=\"https://www.jakara.org/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jakara\u003c/a> and Sikh student organizations in California — the caravan attracted people of all walks, including people who resonate deeply with (Black Lives Matter) caravans they were part of just months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849942\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849942\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46195_013_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harry Singh speaks during a rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These protests are reflecting long pent-up traumas and desperation. My book released last year, on the human rights defenders through the bloody Punjab conflict of the ’80s and ’90s, that unfolded worst for Sikhs in rural Punjab, is subtitled “The Wheat Fields Still Whisper.” Many of those whispers, the inter-generational traumas, are being loudly heard now, even by the youngest protesters camping outside New Delhi today. The spark might be the new laws, but the pain and outrage is decades old and due to devastating policies that have taken too many lives the state considers expendable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new laws have poked at a deep trust deficit. They allow big corporations to be unfettered buyers against whom small farmers believe, for very good reason, that they’ll have very little negotiating power. But on top of that, the laws introduce a dispute resolution system that bypasses civil courts. So this new legalized impunity is perceived as a very cruel joke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849941\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849941\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46234_060_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rally in support of farmer protests in India outside of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How you suggest people get involved or educate themselves further?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Very telling, (is how) photos and videos of the protests at the doorsteps of New Delhi show how peaceful it is, yet how the protesters are in a precarious position. Share their stories, their voices on social media and with your local government representatives. And keep pressure to ensure there is actual discourse and not retribution against protesters, whether now or later.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>We’ve seen too often how protests can turn sideways, with disastrous consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can put to good use what you’ve learned this year about the importance of preserving the right to protest and conscientious citizen-activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849940\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849940\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS46225_046_KQED_SanFrancisco_IndiaFarmerProtest_12052020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jasroop Gill holds a flag that says ‘Farmers Protest’ during a car caravan rally in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2020, in support of farmers in India. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It isn’t just the United States watching the election with bated breath — the world watched closely as the results came in. Now many people around the globe are chiming in on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ historic nomination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much has already been written on the nominee’s background as a Black woman, and her identity as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.thejuggernaut.com/opinion-to-be-black-and-indian-right-now?s=ckfzvenrt0b6x0780lxl8xjw0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">daughter of immigrants\u003c/a> — with a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/new-york-joe-biden-election-2020-california-archive-f5e16e86fd669396003a19c200a911f9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mother from India\u003c/a> and a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-race-and-ethnicity-joe-biden-donald-trump-jamaica-08c85c2f655ef8f11b1504c3788de5d9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">father from Jamaica\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The international community reacted to the news of Oakland-born and Berkeley-raised Harris as the vice president-elect with messages of hope from different parts of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m happy to see that she is someone who has a long career, has the experience, has the qualifications,” said \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pacinthe Mattar, an Egyptian woman who immigrated to Canada in the 1980s, “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But at the same time, sometimes I think our obsession over representation when we don’t see ourselves often in news or media or politics can make us blind to … what kind of work they’re going to be doing and what systems they’re going to uphold.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mattar said she’s cheering Harris while also hoping “that her politics and her policies and the way that she helps lead the U.S. is going to be, not just a win for representation, but for the impact that it’s going to have on Black women and the lives of peoples of color in the work that she does.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congratulations came in from other Canadians as well, some touting the fact that she is also the first graduate of Westmount High School in Montreal to be elected as vice president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1325121342568505346\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In India, officials — as well as Bollywood stars — took to social media to post congratulatory messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villagers in her\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-2020-election-results/2020/11/08/932755718/euphoria-residents-of-harris-ancestral-village-in-india-celebrate-her-win\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> ancestral home\u003c/a> in Tamil Nadu sent congratulatory messages, set off firecrackers, carried placards and offered prayers after they awoke Sunday morning to the news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Groups gathered at street corners in Thulasendrapuram, a village of 350 people, reading newspapers and chatting about the victory before moving to a temple according to the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-kamala-harris-electoral-college-india-d4eef836a2d67ac5d2417a49eea86a42\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Associated Press\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">A woman wrote outside her home: “Congratulations Kamala Harris. Pride of our village. Vanakkam (Greetings) America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/nimumurali/status/1325267488104329216\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Harris’ uncle, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUDY4sCeNmQ&feature=emb_title\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gopalan Balachandran\u003c/a>, told \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/kamala-harris-india-vice-president/2020/11/07/e7842736-1ecb-11eb-ad53-4c1fda49907d_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Washington Post\u003c/a>: “This is a big moment, no question about it,” he said. “It’s good for the United States. It’s good for many people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1325145671742054400\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness expressed support and pride in Harris’ Jamaican heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/andrewholnessjm/status/1325143062423736320?s=21\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional messages came in from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and elsewhere congratulating President-elect Joe Biden as well as VP-elect Harris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While much of the positivity focused on Harris, some of the strength of the reaction may have been fueled by perceptions of Trump, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/engel-world-reacted-to-biden-win-like-u-s-overthrew-a-dictator-95527493828\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the results came through tonight, people were reacting like the United States had overthrown a dictator,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Associated Press contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It isn’t just the United States watching the election with bated breath — the world watched closely as the results came in. Now many people around the globe are chiming in on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ historic nomination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much has already been written on the nominee’s background as a Black woman, and her identity as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.thejuggernaut.com/opinion-to-be-black-and-indian-right-now?s=ckfzvenrt0b6x0780lxl8xjw0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">daughter of immigrants\u003c/a> — with a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/new-york-joe-biden-election-2020-california-archive-f5e16e86fd669396003a19c200a911f9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mother from India\u003c/a> and a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-race-and-ethnicity-joe-biden-donald-trump-jamaica-08c85c2f655ef8f11b1504c3788de5d9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">father from Jamaica\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The international community reacted to the news of Oakland-born and Berkeley-raised Harris as the vice president-elect with messages of hope from different parts of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m happy to see that she is someone who has a long career, has the experience, has the qualifications,” said \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pacinthe Mattar, an Egyptian woman who immigrated to Canada in the 1980s, “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But at the same time, sometimes I think our obsession over representation when we don’t see ourselves often in news or media or politics can make us blind to … what kind of work they’re going to be doing and what systems they’re going to uphold.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mattar said she’s cheering Harris while also hoping “that her politics and her policies and the way that she helps lead the U.S. is going to be, not just a win for representation, but for the impact that it’s going to have on Black women and the lives of peoples of color in the work that she does.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>In India, officials — as well as Bollywood stars — took to social media to post congratulatory messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villagers in her\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-2020-election-results/2020/11/08/932755718/euphoria-residents-of-harris-ancestral-village-in-india-celebrate-her-win\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> ancestral home\u003c/a> in Tamil Nadu sent congratulatory messages, set off firecrackers, carried placards and offered prayers after they awoke Sunday morning to the news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Groups gathered at street corners in Thulasendrapuram, a village of 350 people, reading newspapers and chatting about the victory before moving to a temple according to the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-kamala-harris-electoral-college-india-d4eef836a2d67ac5d2417a49eea86a42\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Associated Press\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">A woman wrote outside her home: “Congratulations Kamala Harris. Pride of our village. Vanakkam (Greetings) America.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Additional messages came in from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and elsewhere congratulating President-elect Joe Biden as well as VP-elect Harris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While much of the positivity focused on Harris, some of the strength of the reaction may have been fueled by perceptions of Trump, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/engel-world-reacted-to-biden-win-like-u-s-overthrew-a-dictator-95527493828\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the results came through tonight, people were reacting like the United States had overthrown a dictator,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Associated Press contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When presidential candidate Joe Biden announced California Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential pick, there was an outpouring of support from many Indian Americans who pledged their votes and dollars to the campaign. But since the news broke, Indian Americans have been having complicated discussions about Harris’ identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Indian Americans tend to lean left and vote for Democratic candidates, says \u003ca href=\"https://aapidata.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AAPI Data founder and director\u003c/a> Karthick Ramakrishnan. He says \u003ca href=\"https://aapidata.com/infographic-2018-joe-biden/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">almost 68% of Indian Americans favor Joe Biden\u003c/a>. Now that Harris, who was born in California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, is on the Democratic ticket, he believes that support will only get stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re probably going to see a lot of movement among Indian American donors increasing their support for the Democratic ticket,” Ramakrishnan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His research shows that Santa Clara County has the highest population of Indian Americans in the United States. Because of that, he believes a lot of money will flow from the county to the Biden-Harris campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But apart from their financial support, some Indian Americans have mixed feelings about Kamala Harris. Ramakrishnan says some members of the Indian American community were skeptical about how much she talked about her Indian heritage during the presidential campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She did not want to lead with her identity,” Ramakrishnan said. “Whenever she was asked about it, she would gladly answer and talk about her Indian heritage, but it’s not something that she wanted to lead with.” He believes that during her vice-presidential campaign she’ll be able to talk more freely about her background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While on the presidential campaign trail, Harris did some campaigning targeting Indian Americans, including talking with \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiaJvIxpGg&ab_channel=PatriotAct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hasan Minhaj on the show “Patriot Act\u003c/a> about her Indian heritage and making dosas with Mindy Kaling in a campaign video that became popular after extensive shares on Facebook by Indian aunties and uncles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1199115549705265152\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social media shares do not necessarily translate into votes for every Indian American. Pugal Anbu with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareatamilmanram.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SF Bay Area Tamil Manram\u003c/a>, a local group for Indian Americans from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, believes that Harris’ Indian identity isn’t enough to sway right-leaning Indian Americans who plan to vote for President Trump in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I personally see this as a battle between right wing versus left wing ideology,” Anbu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump campaign has also been reaching out to Indian Americans. Trump visited India \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/donald-trump-india-narendra-modi-trade/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in February\u003c/a> and hosted a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.howdymodi.org/\">Howdy Modi event\u003c/a>” in 2019, in which Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met crowds in Houston. Anbu says Modi and Trump fall along the same political lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back in India, our prime minister, Narendra Modi, represents nationalism and right-wing policies,” Anbu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anbu believes Indians who already lean to the right aren’t likely to change party lines solely because Harris is Indian, and Harmeet Dhillon, the national committeewoman of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cagop.org/s/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Republican National Committee for California\u003c/a>, agrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My identity has nothing to do with my position on most issues: taxes, health care, education,” Dhillon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also argues that, from a politician’s standpoint, there aren’t enough Indian Americans in the United States to sway an election in either direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They can be helpful in financing, in certain messaging and grassroots organizing in those communities, but [the] 1% or 2% we’re talking about here are not enough to turn out the vote for your 51% that you need,” Dhillon said. “Pandering to them for political gain is not a winning proposition in the long term.” [aside tag=\"kamala-harris\" label=\"More Related Coverage\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pugal Anbu agrees — Indian Americans aren’t going to vote in unison — noting there is Kamala Harris on one side and Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican governor of South Carolina, on the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What excites him is that he’s slowly seeing his community represented on both sides of the political spectrum — that gives him hope that maybe someday he can see his teenage daughter up there, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So far, she was interested in other activities like dance and music, now she seems to be listening to political news too,” Anbu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s trying to encourage her to look up to Harris and other Indian American politicians who are making it big, and maybe run for office herself one day.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When presidential candidate Joe Biden announced California Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential pick, there was an outpouring of support from many Indian Americans who pledged their votes and dollars to the campaign. But since the news broke, Indian Americans have been having complicated discussions about Harris’ identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Indian Americans tend to lean left and vote for Democratic candidates, says \u003ca href=\"https://aapidata.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AAPI Data founder and director\u003c/a> Karthick Ramakrishnan. He says \u003ca href=\"https://aapidata.com/infographic-2018-joe-biden/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">almost 68% of Indian Americans favor Joe Biden\u003c/a>. Now that Harris, who was born in California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, is on the Democratic ticket, he believes that support will only get stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re probably going to see a lot of movement among Indian American donors increasing their support for the Democratic ticket,” Ramakrishnan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His research shows that Santa Clara County has the highest population of Indian Americans in the United States. Because of that, he believes a lot of money will flow from the county to the Biden-Harris campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But apart from their financial support, some Indian Americans have mixed feelings about Kamala Harris. Ramakrishnan says some members of the Indian American community were skeptical about how much she talked about her Indian heritage during the presidential campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She did not want to lead with her identity,” Ramakrishnan said. “Whenever she was asked about it, she would gladly answer and talk about her Indian heritage, but it’s not something that she wanted to lead with.” He believes that during her vice-presidential campaign she’ll be able to talk more freely about her background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While on the presidential campaign trail, Harris did some campaigning targeting Indian Americans, including talking with \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiaJvIxpGg&ab_channel=PatriotAct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hasan Minhaj on the show “Patriot Act\u003c/a> about her Indian heritage and making dosas with Mindy Kaling in a campaign video that became popular after extensive shares on Facebook by Indian aunties and uncles.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Social media shares do not necessarily translate into votes for every Indian American. Pugal Anbu with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareatamilmanram.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SF Bay Area Tamil Manram\u003c/a>, a local group for Indian Americans from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, believes that Harris’ Indian identity isn’t enough to sway right-leaning Indian Americans who plan to vote for President Trump in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I personally see this as a battle between right wing versus left wing ideology,” Anbu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump campaign has also been reaching out to Indian Americans. Trump visited India \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/donald-trump-india-narendra-modi-trade/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in February\u003c/a> and hosted a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.howdymodi.org/\">Howdy Modi event\u003c/a>” in 2019, in which Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met crowds in Houston. Anbu says Modi and Trump fall along the same political lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back in India, our prime minister, Narendra Modi, represents nationalism and right-wing policies,” Anbu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anbu believes Indians who already lean to the right aren’t likely to change party lines solely because Harris is Indian, and Harmeet Dhillon, the national committeewoman of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cagop.org/s/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Republican National Committee for California\u003c/a>, agrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My identity has nothing to do with my position on most issues: taxes, health care, education,” Dhillon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also argues that, from a politician’s standpoint, there aren’t enough Indian Americans in the United States to sway an election in either direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They can be helpful in financing, in certain messaging and grassroots organizing in those communities, but [the] 1% or 2% we’re talking about here are not enough to turn out the vote for your 51% that you need,” Dhillon said. “Pandering to them for political gain is not a winning proposition in the long term.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pugal Anbu agrees — Indian Americans aren’t going to vote in unison — noting there is Kamala Harris on one side and Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican governor of South Carolina, on the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What excites him is that he’s slowly seeing his community represented on both sides of the political spectrum — that gives him hope that maybe someday he can see his teenage daughter up there, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So far, she was interested in other activities like dance and music, now she seems to be listening to political news too,” Anbu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s trying to encourage her to look up to Harris and other Indian American politicians who are making it big, and maybe run for office herself one day.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan says he has tested positive for the coronavirus and is hospitalized in Mumbai.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a tweet on Saturday, Bachchan, 77, said his family and staff have also undergone tests and are awaiting results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/SrBachchan/status/1282002456063295490\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He appealed to those who were in close proximity to him in the past 10 days to get themselves tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bachchan’s 44-year-old-son Abhishek Bachchan, also an actor, tweeted Saturday night that he also has tested COVID-19 positive and is hospitalized. “Both of us having mild symptoms. I request all to stay calm and not panic,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The elder Bachchan has acted in more than 200 Indian films over the past five decades. He is also a former politician and a television host.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Pune and Bangalore are among the Indian cities worst hit by the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Saturday India saw its biggest daily spike as its infections passed 800,000. The surging cases are raising sharp concerns about unequal treatment in the pandemic, as the wealthy hoard medical equipment and use private hospitals and the poor crowd into overwhelmed public facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>India reported a new daily high of 27,114 cases on Saturday and nearly a dozen states have imposed a partial lockdown in high-risk areas. Cases jumped from 600,000 to more than 800,000 in nine days. People are packing India’s public hospitals as many are unable to afford private ones that generally uphold higher standards of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged top officials to improve infection testing and tracking, especially in states with high positive rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Globally more than 12.5 million people have been infected by the virus and over 560,000 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the pandemic’s true toll is much higher due to testing shortages, poor data collection in some nations and other issues.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
"airtime": "SUN 9pm-10pm",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.commonwealthclub.org/podcasts",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"id": "here-and-now",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/hiddenbrain.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
"subscribe": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Hidden-Brain-p787503/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510308/podcast.xml"
}
},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
"imageAlt": "KQED Hyphenación",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/xtTd",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Political Breakdown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"subscribe": {
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/572155894/political-breakdown",
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