In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American social media personality, Matt Wallace (@mattwallace888). He's best-known for simping on Elon Musk, and for spreading the most outrageous lies and conspiracy theories online, thus monetizing his social media accounts.
1/20
By his own words, Matt is a "successful entrepreneur and social media personality who creates high value content", but he's actually just a grifter who has allegedly made a lot of money with so-called pump and dump schemes related to cryptocurrencies.
2/20
Pumping and dumping basically means a situation where you promote a crypto/stock/whatever heavily to increase its price and then sell your share. Pump and dump schemes are extremely popular with cryptocurrencies.
3/20
Incidentally, Wallace also tried to start his own crypto, Accept Crypto. The token naturally tanked, and they claimed to be making "a recission for investors."
His strategy of staying relevant and increasing his engagement, in addition to spreading fake news, is sucking up to Elon. He's the "Elon reply guy", and often tweets about how "cool" Musk actually is, while farming for likes and shares.
5/20
Perhaps due to this,Matt is just another of the many conspiracy theorists who were accepted to the X/Twitter's subscription pool and also gets plenty of ad share revenue from the platform. All this revenue comes from the disinformation & conspiracy theories he spreads daily.
6/20
The thing is, Matt doesn't even try the Russian method of mixing half-truths with lies - he just makes shit up. But don't take my word for it, here are some of Matt's outrageous claims without a single source:
- Obama's were connected to Epstein's trafficking ring.
7/20
- The Obama's were somehow connected to the death of one of their staff members.
- The anti-Semite conspiracy theorist and country star Oliver Anthony turned down deals worth 8 million USD.
- That he made 912 551 USD from X/Twitter revenue.
8/20
Matt has heavily promoted conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, Bill Gates, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, and many other prominent figures. By connecting these lies and representing them as a "globalist conspiracy" has made Wallace one of the fastest growing accounts on X.
9/20
Lately his focus has been on conspiracy theories related to the Maui wildfires, in which he spreads lies about the whole incident being organized by the rich elites.
We can safely expect to see these fake images in the future, too.
10/20
And here's a perfect example of why X in its current stage is completely broken: Matt claims that in this video "Transgender student nearly kills female student after she said she did not want them in the girls' locker room/bathroom". An outrageous claim...
11/20
...without actual proof, as @shayan86 showed. The tweet itself had over 12 million impressions, 57 000 likes and was shared over 20 000 times. It doesn't even have Community Notes. This is exactly how "rage farming" works: invoke strong emotions to garner a huge engagement.
12/20
Naturally, he has also spread lies and made-up stories about the war in Ukraine. He's hopped on the trendy "This is how Kyiv/Ukraine looks in the middle of war" bandwagon, but also spreads stories about Ukraine being a ...
13/20
...money laundering scheme, and claims that Ukraine is losing the war. All of this is completely cynical: he doesn't care about the war, but about the engagement and reaction he can get from these hot takes and outright lies.
14/20
It's worth mentioning, that apparently Matt was initially against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but at some point that changed, probably because the contrarian comments garnered more views, shares and likes. See in the screenshot, how his support for Ukraine in...
15/20
...Mar 2022 got mere 8 likes, whereas his latest lie about Putin banning OnlyFans got close to a million views and over 20 000 likes. The same has been evident from many accounts that turned pro-Kremlin, including Malaysian grifter Ian Miles Cheong aka @stillgray.
16/20
Wallace utilizes heavily the "Firehose of Falsehood" propaganda model.He creates content for basically every platform imaginable. In similar fashion to @jacksonhinklle,Matt also mobilizes his followers on TG & Patreon to promote his content elsewhere:
17/20
Now, we shouldn't underestimate Matt's influence: he has over 1,2 million followers on X (this number was +300k in Jan 2023), his YouTube channels have 240k and 40k subscribers, IG has over 30k followers, and his Patreon has over 300 donors.
18/20
To conclude: @mattwallace888 is one of the biggest accounts pushing conspiracy theories, pro-Kremlin narratives and lies on X/Twitter. The account is fully monetized, and supported by @elonmusk. All this lying and sucking up to Elon is actually making him a rich man.
19/20
Therefore, Matt Wallace is a so-called "super-spreader" of disinformation and fake news.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about Finland and how pro-Kremlin propagandists have become more active in the Finnish political space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time since 2022, they’ve gained some political power in Finland.
1/16
Russia’s political strategy in countries with Russian-speaking minorities (such as Finland and the Baltics) is typically quite similar: it seeks to rally these minorities around issues like language and minority rights, and then frames the situation as oppression.
2/16
At the same time, Russian speakers are extremely wary and skeptical of local media, and instead tend to follow Russian domestic outlets like Russia-1 and NTV, thereby reinforcing an almost impenetrable information bubble.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Ukrainian SBU’s “Spiderweb” operation and the main disinformation narrative vatniks have been spreading during the afterfall. While domestic Russian media stays silent, the vatniks and Russian milbloggers have been extremely loud.
1/20
This operation was probably the most impactful strike since the drowning of the Moskva, massively reducing Russia’s capability to bomb Ukrainian cities (or anyone else’s). It involved smuggling 117 FPV drones hidden in trucks into Russia. Once near airbases,…
2/20
…the roofs opened remotely, launching drones in synchronized waves to strike targets up to 4,000 km away. The mission took 18 months to plan. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers who transported them had no idea they were delivering weapons deep behind their own lines.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian movie director, propagandist, and former priest: Ivan Okhlobystin. He’s best known for his strong support for the war on Ukraine and for his radical views, which are often used as a testbed for the domestic Russian audience.
1/20
Ivan was born in 1966 from a short-lived marriage between a 62-year-old chief physician and a 19-year-old engineering student. She later remarried, and the family moved from Kaluga province to Moscow. Ivan kept the surname Okhlobystin from his biological father.
2/20
After moving to Moscow, Ivan began studying at VGIK film school. He soon became a playwright for theatre productions and also wrote for Stolitsa magazine, which he later left because, as he put it, “it had become a brothel.”
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.
1/20
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.
2/20
As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.
1/23
Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”
2/23
After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.
1/20
Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.
2/20
Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.