As Instagram stories on public accounts can be viewed by anyone, it’s normal to have a few random people or spam accounts showing up under your story’s viewers at any given time.
However, if one name that you don’t recognize appears over and over, it may ring alarm bells in your head.
That’s exactly what happened to TikTok user Jackie (@elotes.htx). In a video with over 2.3 million views as of Saturday, Jackie says she saw someone consistently viewing her stories. Because of this, she decided to figure out who the person was.
“I was like, has to be someone that knows me but that doesn’t like to watch my stories through their actual profile,” she recalls.
@elotes.htx Shes my biggest fan 😫🙌🏻😭 I would love to be me too 😘 #fyp #fakeigstory #fakeigaccount #fypage #howtotiktok ♬ original sound – ELOTES.HTX
To discover their identity, Jackie deployed a clever method that involved entering their username on Instagram and clicking “Forgot Password.”
This provided Jackie with the first and last letter of their email address handle, which she cross-referenced with the contacts in her email account. After a little bit of searching, she says she managed to find the secret viewer.
“You’ve got to be so stupid,” she says. “You should have just made a fake email too, dumbass.”
In a later video, Jackie says that she confronted the person in question via Instagram direct messages, who responded by calling her “miserable.”
“Your miserable af for all the shade you throw on social media,” the secret viewer allegedly replied. “I kept up with it for entertainment.”
“All you have under your name is a fake IG account. You dont even own the car you drive,” Jackie retorted in the caption.
In the comments section, users commended Jackie’s detective work, with many noting their own methods for viewing stories while avoiding detection.
“Rookie. She’s supposed to block you after every view lmao,” one user wrote.
“This is why I view the story then block them,” offered another.
“Theres websites you can watch accounts and stories thru and it won’t show in the person’s views that you watched their story,” a third claimed.
“This is why I have a spam gmail account and [fake] # for these situations lol gotta cover ALL bases,” stated another TikToker.
We’ve reached out to Jackie via email.
Update 6:29am CT May 15: In an email to the Daily Dot, Jackie offered more context about the situation.
“This person was my sister in law. She followed me through her main Instagram account & she stopped watching my stories and begin watching them through her fake Instagram account,” she wrote. “I have not spoken to her ever since.”
