Will the Real Mati Marroni Please Stand Up?

The popular model shares her unique predicament and how she manages to succeed despite the adversity

In the last decade, the increasingly rapid rise of social media, influencers, and digital marketing has opened numerous doors for individuals and brands to find success online; however, social media has also greatly contributed to the rise of online identity theft and fictional personas, more commonly known as “catfishing.” Unfortunately, people all over the world have been able to anonymously steal content from other people’s social media accounts for their own gain, whether it be for the intention of earning a crooked income or merely for their own entertainment. Oftentimes, young female models and influencers are the victims of this insensitive crime.

Take young model and social media star Mati Marroni, for example. Although she’s only 18 years old, Marroni blew up on social media scene at just 16 years old and has grown her Instagram account to almost 400,000 followers over the past two years. While Mati is extremely grateful for the many unique opportunities that being a model and charming personality has provided her, she has been forced to face the darker side of online fame which consists of endless harassment and constant catfishing. In fact, several of the fake accounts who impersonate Marroni by using her photos and name have gained up to 2 million followers, some of which are even celebrities and other prominent social media figures. At one point, the largest catfish account even managed to livestream on Instagram with the popular rap artist Tyga using an old recording of Marroni. Thousands of fans were watching the live video, including many celebrities.

According to Mati, the catfishing first began almost two years ago when she was just a minor at 17 years old, making the fake accounts that much more inappropriate. She started noticing a series of fake accounts that were using her name and likeness appearing in her feed. At first, Marroni didn’t think much of it; however, the catfish accounts soon exploded in popularity, gaining hundreds of thousands of fans in just a couple of months. Marroni began to realize it was a serious problem when she started being recognized in public as the individual in the phony accounts, and that her reputation was in completely in their hands. Soon after, Marroni’s real Instagram account was deleted, allowing the fake accounts space and time to continually grow and profit from her content.

“I completely wanted to erase myself from social media at the time,” Marroni remembers. “I could not just let them win because here were these people trafficking my images for their own use, making money off of my name and content.”

Marroni tried her best to ignore these accounts and convince herself that it really wasn’t that big of a deal, but of course, the catfishes eventually got under her skin when the situation began interfering with her personal life as well as her overall happiness. Eventually, Marroni hired a lawyer and a legal team to remove the phony accounts and punish the impersonators behind them. To her dismay, the additional assistance resulted in no help at all with the issues at hand, as the perpetrators maintained complete anonymity and have remained impossible to trace. To add insult to injury, the impersonators often send Marroni hateful messages mocking her about their success and her unhappiness.

Despite the distress these catfish accounts have caused Marroni over the past two years, she continues to push forward to grow her own, real account in the hopes of consistent success for years to come. With having to deal with the misfortunate experience of being exploited on the internet at such a young age, Marroni hopes to be an advocate for women all over the world who don’t have the means or circumstances to pursue what they truly want in life.

“I want to help them achieve whatever their heart desires,” Mati explained. “Whether it’s schooling, raising a family on their own terms, escaping religious persecution, or dressing however they’d like.”

Mati has certainly brought the rising issue of catfishing to light, and there will hopefully be more secure processes for fighting crimes like this over social media in the near future.

Readers can keep up with Mati Marroni on her Instagram.

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