A student from Tennessee claimed she was shocked to discover that a dating service for “sugar daddies” had stolen her TikTok footage at her high school graduation party.
The dating app Meete is being sued by 19-year-old Kaelyn Lunglhofer, a freshman at the University of Tennessee, for allegedly copying her recordings and pretending that she was an escort for older men.
The nursing student claimed that until a friend emailed her one of the videos, she was unaware that her social media was being used for Meete advertisements. She claimed to have been “embarrassed and mortified.”
“I received a video that made me appear like a prostitute, and that was terrible,” Lunglhofer said to WHNT.
The British Virgin Islands-based company Meete and its Chinese affiliates are being sued by the student for allegedly using her stolen TikTok videos in provocative advertisements.
In the company’s advertisements, a female narrator asked, “Are you looking for a friend with benefits?” while Lunglhofer danced at a graduation celebration. According to the lawsuit, “this app shows you women around you who are looking for some fun.”
“This app is selling to sort of enlist a teenager as an involuntary spokesperson for their product without consent, without permission, and then to target people around her with that ad to try to deceive them is about as bad as it gets in terms of this type of conduct,” said Abe Pafford, Lunglhofer’s attorney, who accused the company of predatory behaviour.
Kaelyn Lunglhofer, a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Tennessee, claimed she was shocked to discover the Meete dating app using her TikTok videos from her high school graduation celebration.
In a lawsuit, the 19-year-old claimed that the app used recordings from her high school graduation to entice males who were “looking for friends with benefits.”
Despite having its headquarters in the British Virgin Islands, Pafford said that the Meete app employed geo-targeted advertisements to attract males in the University of Tennessee region.
According to court filings, Meete is intended to “solicit” males into “financial agreements” to interact with women who use the site for escort services, in contrast to the majority of dating apps where users converse one-on-one.
In contrast to free apps, that is. Men pay women who register on the site to talk to them.
Lunglhofer expressed her dismay at seeing her likeness utilised for these services and her concern that people mistaking her for a user could damage her reputation.
“There comes a certain connotation when you have that career,” she remarked, “and obviously I don’t have that career, but implying that I do like those connotations that can come with it.” And that’s a dangerous and awful sensation.
“They want to sort of create a shock or a jolt of recognition when people see these ads and they want to convey the impression that all around them there are people participating in this app,” the lawyer claimed. Meete has over 17 million users worldwide. Pafford accused the dating app of purposefully using a local young woman to trick men in the Tennessee area, even if the women were unaware of it.
The nursing student claimed that until a friend emailed her one of the videos, she had no idea that her social media was being used for Meete advertisements. She claimed to have been “embarrassed and mortified.”
Thank you, Tarte. I adore you. @tartecosmetics #tartecosmetics #tartepartner #bamarush #utk #rush They could have just as easily obtained a similar video from someone who was 17, 16, or 15 years old.And I believe they would utilise it as long as it fulfilled their needs.
Lunglhofer stated that even though she filed a legal complaint against Meete and is requesting at least $750,000 in damages, the action is not motivated by money and is intended to correct the record.
“I really want justice,” Lunglhofer declared. “I want what’s right to be right.” Furthermore, I don’t think what they’re doing is correct at all.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Meete and Lunglhofer’s lawyers have been approached by The Daily Mail for comment.
