There was just one problem: Emily Hart did not exist. The seemingly all-American influencer was an AI-generated creation cooked up by a 22-year-old medical student in India, who has revealed how a simple prompt turned conservative thirst into a lucrative side hustle.
The bizarre scheme has now exposed what he described as the ultimate 'cheat code' for the anti-woke internet: give an AI generator a blonde woman, add patriotic slogans and conservative talking points, and watch the engagement roll in.
The creator, identified only as Sam, wanted to make money while studying medicine and saving towards his future plans. He turned to Google's Gemini AI for advice and was encouraged to target what it described as a potentially lucrative conservative audience.
The result was Emily Hart, a fictional young blonde presented online as a registered nurse with a glamorous appearance and strongly conservative views.
Her posts were carefully designed to appeal to the MAGA crowd. She appeared posing in a bikini while ice fishing, drinking Coors Light and handling firearms, while her captions pushed messages that were explicitly pro-Christian, pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-immigration and anti-woke.
Sam told the magazine that he would write something supporting conservative causes almost every day.
The strategy worked spectacularly. Hart reportedly gained 10,000 followers within a month, while individual reels attracted millions of views.
According to Sam, the experiment failed to attract the same level of attention. He claimed progressive users were quicker to recognise the account as AI-generated and dismissed it as 'AI slop'.
By contrast, he said the MAGA audience engaged heavily with Hart's content.
'The MAGA crowd is made up of dumb people, like super-dumb people. And they fall for it,' Sam said.
His comments were blunt, but the underlying experiment raises a broader question about how political communities interact with AI-generated personalities.
Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies emerging technology and democracy, told Wired that AI can make fake profiles appear more believable, potentially amplifying their reach.
Sam did not need a real influencer, a photography crew or years of social media experience. He needed a prompt, an understanding of his target audience and enough time to keep feeding the algorithm.
The MAGA crowd spent months thirsting over "Emily Hart," an AI-generated blonde who loved beer and ice fishing, only to find out she was actually a 22-year-old male medical student in India farming them for licensing exam money.The creator literally admitted he tried to make a… pic.twitter.com/ZuBJsE3kl3
Sam said he spent only around 30 to 50 minutes a day maintaining the operation while earning thousands of dollars a month.