Fake Celebrity Scam Messages

About

Fake Celebrity Scam Messages refers to screenshots and photoshops of fake DMs and text messages that appear to have been sent by celebrities looking for money or a piece of personal information from the message recipient. Many of the memes feature the celebrity repeating a notable catchphrase attributed to them in a second message sent after the scam attempt as if to prove they're real. One of the earliest examples of the meme is a scam by rapper DaBaby posted to Reddit in 2021, becoming an increasingly popular format over the following years.

Origin

On March 8th, 2021, Redditor u/xXBdawg77Xx posted a screenshot to /r/scams^[1] titled "Real dababy" depicting a scam DM from someone posing as the rapper DaBaby asking for their social security number, garnering over 2,000 upvotes in three years (shown below).

Spread

Memes using a similar format became increasingly popular over the following years. On July 23rd, 2021, a similar meme about Michael Jackson was posted to iFunny,^[2] garnering over 32,000 smiles in three years. An expanded version of the same meme was posted to /r/facepalm^[3] the next day, garnering over 5,600 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below).

On October 17th, a version of the meme about Lady Gaga was posted to /r/Scams,^[4] garnering over 2,600 upvotes in three years (shown below, left). On September 19th, 2022, a version of the meme featuring a message from the deceased Queen Elizabeth II was posted to /r/facepalm.^[5] garnering over 90,000 upvotes in two years (shown below, right).

On April 21st, 2024, Instagram^[6] user neoliberalhell posted a version of the meme featuring a DM from actor Timothée Chalamet asking for money to film the next Dune movie, garnering over 4,500 likes in two weeks (shown below). That day it was reposted to /r/okbuddycinephile,^[7] garnering over 1,200 upvotes in the same span of time.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References