Gainesville, Fla. — Nonconsensual Videos of Student Hit 8.5M Views

A hashtag bearing a University of Florida sophomore's name drew more than 8.5 million views on X after anonymous accounts posted nonconsensual sexual videos of her, according to an account she gave on WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast, published September 24. The student, Maddie Kowalski, said the campaign spread from a single leaked photo to a coordinated pile-on that reached her family within hours.

Kowalski described the sequence to WIRED senior writer EJ Dickson and host Zoë Schiffer. "When I heard that someone had sent a nude photograph of me to his friends at FSU, and in this picture I was heavily intoxicated," she said, recalling how the incident began. Messages soon told her she was "being talked about all over" her school's Yik Yak feed, she said, before she learned the material circulating was not one photo but a series of videos showing her, in her words, "visibly out of it, naked, and performing sexual acts."

What is the 'burnerverse'?

Dickson and Schiffer use the term "burnerverse" to describe what WIRED calls a sprawling, loosely organized network of anonymous X accounts — built on disposable, or "burner," profiles — that coordinate to spread sexual humiliation of young women as what the podcast's framing calls a participatory sport. The accounts are not run by a single group with a name or leadership structure, according to the WIRED report; instead, they operate as a diffuse swarm that can be reconstituted faster than platforms can suspend individual profiles.

Kowalski's case, as she described it on the podcast, shows how quickly that swarm can scale. Within hours of the first post, #MaddieKowalski was trending nationwide on X and the video views climbed toward the 8.5 million mark WIRED cited. "Everything was just happening really fast, and I couldn't comprehend any of it," Kowalski said.

How did Yik Yak factor into the harassment campaign?

Yik Yak, the anonymous, location-based app popular on college campuses, was where Kowalski first learned the material was spreading beyond a private circle. The platform lets users post within a specific geographic radius without attaching their names, which meant the initial wave of chatter about her was visible to people physically near her before she understood the scope of what had been posted on X.

Kowalski told WIRED she felt disconnected from what she was seeing. "I felt really detached from the girl in the videos because I had so little memory of the events," she said, adding that she had been heavily intoxicated the night the videos were recorded and had not consented to being filmed or to the footage being distributed.

What did anonymous accounts do beyond posting the videos?

The harassment did not stop at the video posts, according to Kowalski's account. Anonymous users resurfaced old photos of her from before that night, and callers and texters — she said — contacted her parents throughout the night. One anonymous man told her father he had had sex with her and had since tested positive for HIV, Kowalski said. Other users on X placed bets, in her telling, on whether she would start an OnlyFans account or attempt suicide before the week was out.

"And at this moment, I just felt my whole world collapse. Everything was being shared and reposted so fast, and I couldn't do anything to stop it," Kowalski said on the podcast. She described sitting "paralyzed" for roughly 24 hours as the material spread.

What is WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast reporting?

The episode is built around a WIRED feature by Dickson examining women targeted by the burnerverse network, with Schiffer conducting the interview segment released September 24. WIRED frames the reporting as an examination of how anonymous, coordinated harassment campaigns move across platforms — from a single X account to Yik Yak to direct contact with a victim's family — faster than moderation systems or law enforcement typically respond. The full podcast episode, including Kowalski's account in her own words, is available on WIRED's site along with the written feature referenced in the episode.

What to watch

• Whether X takes further account-suspension or policy action tied to burnerverse-style coordinated harassment networks.
• Whether University of Florida or other campuses respond to Yik Yak's role in localized harassment spread.
• Additional WIRED reporting on other women identified in the broader feature accompanying the podcast episode.
• Any statement from Kowalski or her representatives following the podcast's publication.

The original WIRED podcast transcript and episode are available at wired.com.