Angie Varona has likely never posed professionally (except maybeyearbook photos) yet she has unwittingly become one of the Internet's favorite models. Problem is, Varona is only 17, and Internet pervs en masse have been trading candid photos of the Miami teen since she was 14. Varona claims her life has been ruined because of it. She has even received numerous threats, and her family had to contact the FBI.
You might remember the story of Kiki Kannibal, a South Florida teen who intentionally found fame as a MySpace queen only to become "the most hated girl on the Internet." Unlike Kannibal, however, Varona never set out to attract online attention.
According to Gawker, Varona's story began when she was 14 and hackers broke into her Photobucket account. There they found a stash of private pictures that Varona says she took for her boyfriend. In many, Varona was posing provocatively in swimwear and lingerie. Not the kind of picture you'd want your teenage daughter to be taking. But in the age of sexting, camera phones, and Facebook, it's not an uncommon activity among teens.
The photos became popular among circles that like to exchange pictures of barely clothed "jailbait," i.e. underage girls. Not quite kiddy porn but not quite innocent. Men traded files of hundreds of pictures of Varona. A Google image search of her name reveals more than 40,200 results. An unauthorized Facebook fan group has more than 24,000 likes.
Varona recounted her story this summer in Miami Montage, a publication put together by high school journalism students at a University of Miami summer program.
"I had been notified by a close friend who had seen me in a porn site ad," Varona told the site. "I spent the whole summer trying to take down all the pictures, but it was virtually impossible to track down who hacked me. I felt like crap knowing my life was going down the drain."
While rumors ran through Varona's high school that she had become a porn star, she was more worried about the unwelcome Internet attention she was receiving.
"I began getting real stalkers," Varona said. "People from other states found out my address and took pictures of my house. They threatened to rape me."
Varona's family had to contact the FBI, and she's now home schooled.
Varona's problems haven't faded in the three years since the trouble began. A rumor circulated earlier this year that she had turned 18, and more mainstream men's sites such as the Chive celebrated the occasion. Problem is, Varona is still only 17.
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