Who is the real Matt Berman aka Mattske?

The real Matt Berman was born in an unknown hospital in Pennsylvania, and his birth certificate says his name is “Matthew Evan Berman.” He grew up in Montgomery County, PA before moving to Philadelphia where I lived most of my adult life. Married to the love of my life Kristen (aka Ten Kelly) Berman. We own a company called Liberty Rose Studios which is a holding entity for our ventures across media & entertainment. It has been called various things over the years, and grown by pivoting. Half of our business has been survival because of the unprecedented crises that keep happening. But that’s partially why you don’t know who I am yet.

There are probably thousands of people named “Matt Berman.” In fact, once upon a time on LinkedIn I was invited into a literal networking group of only Matt Bermans. In my professional life I’ve worked in the architectural industry as a product sales agent: and there is a Matt Berman architectural firm. Not me. I’m also  a branding consultant – and there’s a Matt Berman who does that. As a journalist, I once had to clash with a doppelgänger named Matt Berman who falsely reported me as an imposter on Twitter. That is how I got one of my previous Twitter accounts suspended permanently with no way to appeal it. In no way would I ever try to mimic a guy who worked for BuzzFeed as a fake news political writer.

If you’re reading this, you already (think you) know who I am. 

Odds are, you don’t have a clue.

Where Have I Been The Last (5) Years

This is a question only a few people would actually be asking. Those old “friends” I have lost touch with or family members who refuse to talk to me now. For the rest of the world who didn’t know me before they wouldn’t know who or where I was beforehand. People have said things about me like “something happened to you” and they all pinpoint the wrong dates & times. Too few people have ever taken to time to listen to or understand me and where I’m coming from on some of the world’s biggest questions.

For most of the world, COVID-19 was (as Donald Trump often says) “like something nobody’s ever seen before.” In the end, for me, it was an all-too familiar conceit. A “distinction” as some people might think of it. Just a word. Something that powerful individuals can use to redefine the world around you. A wedge between you and reality.

In 2019, Donald Trump was impeached for the first time. By following this situation as closely as possible and learning about the American system of government along the way, something changed in me. I realized that even the President was not arguing certain things which I knew would be revelatory. His opponents did not make any meaningful case against him. The people defending Donald Trump were being sycophantic, not legislative or judicial. It was all very wrong.

However, when I shared my thoughts online, they were not agreed upon. People could not figure out where I stood on the issue(s) and I was simply trying to figure out what the issue(s) were. The time I spent learning, forming my opinions, others spent time arguing, solidifying their ideas before knowing what they are about. That too was very familiar to me. It’s cult behavior. Not just on (1) side or the other, though. Across the board. Everybody I spoke to had a cult-like inability to engage with my outside perspective.

Some people did no take it well.

Let’s just say, that similar things happened to me between 2020 – today. COVID, George Floyd movement, 2020 election, financial market manipulation, Elon & Twitter, the 2024 election, AI integration, and more recently the 2nd official Trump administration.

Throughout the course of that time, I fought with local state and federal political party members of both the Democrats and Republican parties. Have been assaulted, chased, SWAT’d, and harassed in the streets. Cyberstalked. Arrested. Sued. Evicted.

Homeless.

Moving from PA to Jersey.

To Louisiana.

To Florida.

No media coverage of this. Why?

My writings on these subjects under my old agency name Philly Made Creative were published on our blog and had hundreds, and sometimes thousands of readers about my investigative work. All of my contacts who were reading were: journalists, elected officials and their staff, and government employees. In basically every state across the nation, and some international. At one point my email list was about 25,000 strong and my click-through rate was insane.

USA Today Censored Me Like Nobody’s Ever Seen Before

You’ve heard stories of censorship before but never like this. Nearly every day I was publishing and email marketing my content to reporters hoping they would cover the information I was uncovering. I was hoping a publisher would hire me for my writing on op-eds at least. At the time it was common for companies like ours to make political statements or engage in them as a way to demonstrate brand identity. Instead of falsifying my beliefs or joining a political team, I just kept digging and reporting my findings. I watched my Google Analytics diligently and would watch after I sent my emails immediately dozens of these people would hop on. We were selling merchandise like after the “Bad Things Happen In Philadelphia” comment Trump made during his debate. It was going well. All things considered, I was on my way to being known as a “citizen journalist” at the least.

My messages were not popular locally, and in several instances I went to war with the press.

But after months of writing and marketing, at some point I noticed a lot of email addresses were bouncing back as blocked. It was strange because that usually only happened to newspapers that went out of business.

The general public might not know this but USA Today is a newspaper group with a lot of subsidiaries. They own a lot of them and employ thousands of writers. More than 5,000 of them were in my email list, and at least 10% of them were avid readers. Then all of a sudden poof – 100% of them were gone – and I didn’t know why.

Then I email, and got a response from Maribel Perez Wadsworth. She was the President of USA Today news until 2022. Her response confirmed what I knew which was that their IT department blocked my domain. That means not only could her journalists no longer receive emails from me promoting my work. If they attempted to go to my site, it would be blocked. That is censorship like we hear about in nations such as China. As if my content were as dangerous as mentioning Tiananmen Square to DeepSeek. It blew my mind.

I tried to tell people, and got ignored. Why?

A lot of the bandwidth and evidence or examples people have for censorship is fake.

For example, Hunter Biden’s laptop. It was not censored. The link was broken on Twitter for less than a whole day, and then it became a sensational story which people haven’t been able to stop talking about for years. That isn’t’ censorship. It’s promotion. If you know about it as it’s happening it is not censored.

Journalists are supposed to be able to get information from the public, even if the publisher believes the source is not credible. For the record though, all of my information was credible. My analysis was sound. The things I was saying were not then nor have they yet been communicated by anybody else. Things similar to what I’ve said may have permeated. But my content and voice, my ideas, and how I communicate that – censored.

After USA Today admitted this (which I published and promoted to the rest of my life) I still never got that story promoted. Too many press outlets were unwilling to go against one another. Certainly nobody was going to stick their neck out for me.

The Other Matt Berman Who Wrecked My Twitter Account

This is the other writer named Matt Berman who wrote for BuzzFeed. He and his friends were some of my recipients. I imagine that people were asking him about me and my work, and if he was doing it. It must have made him mad because I was getting more recognition in the inside of the journalistic world than he was. Private chats and Twitter threads started up insulting me. Discrediting me. Invalidating my work. Eventually, they came for my Twitter account.

My account received multiple reports that it was impersonating somebody, this other Matt Berman. I was no stranger to this tactic, because my own family and former associates had done something similar on LinkedIn. They report an account as an imposter, and the platform is not designed to recognize that as an attack vector. So in the end, my Twitter account where has been suspended permanently; with no ability to delete it or get it back. It’s not exactly identity theft, but it’s close. I never thought of a free Twitter account as something worth spending money on like with an attorney to get it back. So in this case, the other Matt Berman won. That hurt, though, to be honest. To be so unknown that my own name could be taken from me.

How Can You Tell I’m The Real Matt Berman?

I’m not the guy who wrote for BuzzFeed. I’m the guy who wrote for Popular Mechanics. The real Matt Berman would be a real guy. The guy who wrote for BuzzFeed lied about a person impersonating him in order to fulfill a political agenda. Had he not done that, the real Matt Berman could have made an impact on the world that would have prevented the situation we are all facing right now. But instead a lot of people like the fake Matt Berman wanted to knock me down a peg from a peg that doesn’t even exist. 

All the people who reported my Twitter, LinkedIn, or other accounts with fake things tried to deny I am the real Matt Berman. They did those things because they don’t want me to exist. Regardless of what I might be called. They want to stop me so they attempt to remove reality from my identity.

I’ve had people who are literal family members pretend they don’t know who I am. On Facebook posts, as I searched for help during times of peak harassment or retaliation. That’s a pretty harsh punishment for the non-crime of disagreeing.

You know I’m the real Matt Berman because I take no shit, never give up, and keep on going. The other Matt Bermans don’t want to be known or they have nothing important to say. 

Reintroducing Mattske, From Childhood

My grandparents named me Mattske. It’s a Polish style nickname that pays homage to the hero of the Hanukkah story Mattathias. The guy who sparked a revolt with the Maccabees. When I was growing up I did not like it. I just wanted to be Matt. My grandparents have been gone for a while, and I do not have a relationship with my family anymore either. So this name is one of the only things I have left especially because my parents refuse to give me photographs of myself as a child. Cruel, unusual, and bizarre.

But after half a decade of having my name and identity attacked, I wanted to return to some kind of roots. Without people to rely on that knew me from before, it was like being reborn, in another timeline. The timeline where I accepted my fate as a revolutionary. The timeline where I honored my grandparents and the legacy they hoped for, while paving a lane nobody could have imagined for me.

As a performer I’ve gone by many names, and as a graffiti writer I’ve had plenty of monikers.

So, I’m used to the identity crisis feeling.

Mattske Is Making It

In the last (5) years I’ve been attacked and censored by a lot of press outlets. But in the last (5) months I’ve been published a bunch of times by one of the most important news publications in American history. Though the media writ large still won’t acknowledge me (yet) my work is beginning to make a huge impact faster than ever. I’m begin quoted in context as an expert in a variety of fields, despite all the adversity I’ve gone through. So many different types of people and organizations have tried to stop me. But here I am.

I Am The Real Matt Berman

None of the other Matt Bermans have my swagger and I’d battle any one of them. On any grounds. At any time. By the end of history you will know only (1) Matt Berman. This one. Mattske the Great, of Philadelphia. The philosopher, activist, graff writing rapping, marketing strategist, money-making, journalist, filmmaker, musician, inventor, game developer, husband, Floridian, American.

And, I’m just getting started.