While the NBC News investigation did not specifically name Karen Gillan among the celebrities whose images appear in the videos sold through Fan-Topia, the Scottish actress—best known for her roles as Amy Pond in Doctor Who , Nebula in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Ruby Roundhouse in the Jumanji franchise—occupies a representative place among the countless public figures whose likenesses have been weaponized by deepfake technology.
The deepfake economy flourishes because there is demand. Creators like those on Fan-Topia are responding to a market—a market of consumers willing to pay, often small amounts, for content that violates the autonomy and dignity of others. As one cybersecurity commentator noted on LinkedIn, “the growing problem of deepfake nonconsensual sexual exploitation of people is clearly something that needs to be stopped”. But stopping it requires more than technical countermeasures or legal prohibitions; it requires a cultural reckoning with what drives demand for such material in the first place. Fan-Topia.Mondomonger.Deepfakes.Karen.Gillan.as...
While Gillan was speaking specifically about the mundane pressures of modern parenting and the cultivation of online personas, her reflections resonate powerfully with the deeper questions raised by deepfake technology. If the impulse to document, curate, and present a version of oneself online already feels psychologically burdensome, what happens when that curated identity can be hijacked entirely—when one’s face, voice, and image can be manipulated without consent to create wholly fictional and often degrading scenarios? While the NBC News investigation did not specifically
The unofficial project—dubbed by fans as “Gillan Everywhere All At Once” —poses a provocative question: What if Karen Gillan had played every major female role in the last twenty years of blockbuster cinema? But as Mondomonger’s deepfakes go viral, crossing the line from niche tribute to ethical firestorm, we are forced to ask: Is Fan-Topia a liberation or a violation? As one cybersecurity commentator noted on LinkedIn, “the
This gap between policy and enforcement represents a critical failure in the infrastructure that enables deepfake exploitation to thrive. By continuing to process payments for these transactions—even after public statements claiming they would not—credit card companies provide the financial oxygen that keeps platforms like Fan-Topia viable. The companies are aware of the issue but have struggled to effectively police transactions across the sprawling, often hidden corners of the internet where this content resides.
Deepfakes rely on advanced machine learning architectures, primarily Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). A GAN consists of two neural networks working against each other:
I would argue she is the . Because of her shape-shifting roles (from terrified photographer in Oculus to grieving Amy Pond in Doctor Who ), she represents the actor as a blank canvas.