Edit 22 Jun 2026: This was originally written when my site was hosted on mattrife.com. Shortly after this post went live, the volume of unhinged inbox idiocy increased dramatically, as did the number of attacks on my site. (I'm certain that neither of those have anything to do with this post, incidentally.) Consequently, I moved my website to here and not there. However, I'm leaving this up for posterity and to illustrate the travails of life as celebrity adjacent.

I also corrected a couple of spelling errors and fixed domain names in the body because I guess WordPress thinks it's just so fucking smart and changed mattrife.com to atomicbox.studio during the migration. JFC.

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I get fan mail. That’s not entirely accurate: people keep sending me fan mail intended for my more famous comedian namesake. I can understand how people might instinctively just go to mattrife.com, thinking that it’s the website for the famous comedian. But that’s where my understanding ends and the bafflement begins.

The backstory: I acquired the mattrife.com domain when I was transitioning from tech to design during the Internet Middle Ages (which is to say, 2004). I intended to use the domain for my email, portfolio, blog, etc., as people often did in those days. And for the past 22 years, I have done exactly that.

As I said, I understand why people would just type the domain into their browser search bar and arrive at my website. But I’m continually fascinated by the lengths to which people will go to contact me. They must first land on the site, which does not look like a comedian’s website. Do they think that Other Me enjoys writing about AI and UX design in his free time? Possibly!

I've also intentionally place the contact link all the way down in the footer, and have even placed a disclaimer on the contact form, including a mandatory checkbox.

Now, I’m not stupid. I’ve been a UX designer for a long time and I know that no one reads copy on web forms (sorry copywriters, but you know deep in your black hearts that it’s true). But even so, I often wonder what would actually trigger the realization for most people.

Such wondering sometimes causes me to fall into deep bouts of despair about the future of humanity.

Most folks just seem oblivious and want to tell me about a joke they thought of that I might like, or just to tell me how much they like my work, which I appreciate. Others want to let me know that someone is impersonating me (the horror!), and a few folks want to sell me something, such as fractional chartered jet services.

I had one person get mad and accuse me of trying to promote my non-existent hemp business because my portfolio includes some work I did for a now-defunct hemp business. That wasn’t even mine. They even went so far as to suggest I read my own post on ethics in design. While I recognize their industriousness, that person is a fucking idiot.

Over the past year, though, things have taken a turn. Earlier in the year I had a couple of series – one of them pretty long and occasionally racist – from women that the Other Me seems to have jilted. Some of those were genuinely sad, and I feel kind of bad for them. (Well, not the racist one. She can fuck off.)

Lately I’ve mostly been receiving requests along with the odd demand. For example, this recent arrival:

Not to be unkind, but I’m fairly certain that neither of us NEEDS to do a goddamn thing for your mom. Also, using AI deepfake for your wallpaper is creepy and kind of weird. I hope she didn't use Grok to create it.

I recently received my first marriage proposal, and I’m honestly kind of surprised that it took this long:

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, it’s remarkable that this person left a gift bag unattended at a 20,000-seat venue. I don’t know how event security works, but I suspect that the gift may have been detonated by the bomb squad somewhere far away.

I also wonder about the t-shirts. Perhaps I would have liked them! I mostly just wear basic Old Navy fare and could probably use something nicer. Unless they had some weird shit printed on them, like an AI deepfakes of us getting married. I guess I’ll never know.

Moving on. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the author that Other Me’s handlers might have been surprised to learn that he has a fiancée by way of a random gift bag. Come to think of it, would his fiancée not be, oh I don’t know, with him, like backstage or something?

My head is starting to hurt trying to sort it out.

But I can see how going to Florida for a private birthday bash with a rando impersonating your significant other might be appealing to a certain type of person. I am not that type of person. I hope she’s not too disappointed.

Not long after that message, someone else wrote to request a private meeting. They didn’t say anything else, but think it was implied.

Don't Troll the Feed

As a general rule I do not reply to fan mail, though I made an exception for a guy who I believe was legitimately being scammed. As a celebrity-adjacent person, I think it’s important to do my part to keep people safe. Almost like a superhero. Or something.

Not to brag on myself, but I do think it’s fortunate that the domain owner (i.e., me) is someone with morals and a basic ethical foundation, because it would be all too easy to scam the hell out of people. If I were an enterprising criminal I could easily set up about a dozen different scams from merch to fake content to the biggest grift of all – crypto. (Actually, "Matti Coin" does have a nice ring to it...)

I suppose I could respond to some of message a tongue-in-cheek letter or autographed photo or voice message. But I have like a million projects to work on already and I’m not convinced that trolling (mostly) innocent folks is the best use of my time, so I guess I’ll continue what I’m doing and simply post the offenders to my Wall of Shame.

And if you want to send me fan mail, go for it. Just be sure to read the disclaimer.