I created a burner account to keep tabs on my ex — it’s a dangerous game to play

Is it ever a good idea to have a burner account? (Picture: Getty Images) Over the weekend, Channing Tatum made headlines after online sleuths accused him of operating a secret burner account on Instagram. Now, the evidence was compelling. The account, aptly named @NonyaBidness, had left a number of shady comments on posts about the actor’s former fiancée Zoe Kravitz, her new beau, Harry Styles, and even his ex-wife, Jenna Dewan. Under one particular post criticising Kravitz and Styles, the mystery user reportedly wrote: ‘Just here for the hate,’ accompanied by laughing and popcorn emojis. The cherry on top? Its only follower was Channing himself… Shortly after the allegations surfaced, he unfollowed the account — and hours later, it disappeared. Channing-gate may be over, but the impact of burner accounts lives on. Just don’t get your fingers burnt. Channing might be innocent, but the scandal still raises some interesting questions (Picture: Getty) Burner accounts have been around since the dawn of social media. Under the guise of a fake name and profile picture, they become a user’s second identity — a way to anonymously post, comment, and like. Whether it’s spying on exes, stalking former best friends, or tracking your own social status, they can be fun, powerful and, at times, totally overwhelming. Sam* refers to his burner account as ‘nothing more than a safe space for the Instagram grid-obsessed demon that lives within m’.. Ask Metro Use AI to go deeper into the stories you care about – powered by Metro and trusted publications. ‘It started as a place for me to test what my feed was going to look like,’ he tells Metro, ‘but now it’s like a waiting room at the doctors – a back log of mediocre photo dumps just waiting to be assessed by the punters’. But that’s not the case for everyone. People create burner accounts for all kinds of reasons (Picture: Getty Images) Lucy* describes burner accounts as a ‘dangerous game’ she wouldn’t recommend to anyone. ‘I first created my account around 11 or 12 years ago,’ the 34-year-old tells Metro. ‘The reason I wanted to make a burner account was to get confirmation on whether or not my ex was being faithful, as I had heard he’d been messaging other people online.’ Unlike whoever was behind @NonyaBidness, Lucy, who’s chosen to remain anonymous, was determined to make her account look ‘as real and legitimate as possible’. ‘I created a scenario in which my ‘person’ had just moved to the country I was living in. I spent a few days creating posts, taking pictures from online, and following different people.’ Within two days of creating the burner account, she reached out to her ex, sharing that she was new in town and asking him to ‘show her around’. ‘I was trying to get him to say that he was single (which he did) — despite the fact that at that very moment I was actually sat on the sofa next to him.’ That was that, she’d succeeded in her mission. Zoe Kravitz and Harry Styles started dating over six months after the actress’ split with Channing Tatum (Picture: XNY/Star Max/GC Images) Lucy may be grateful the account exposed her partner’s infidelity, but she strongly warns others against trying it themselves. ‘I do think that it’s a dangerous game to play, to pretend to be someone else. ‘It can become very consuming, and even put you in situations you would never have been in otherwise.’ Have you ever created a burner account? What do the experts say? ‘While burner accounts on social media have often, and understandably, become associated with harassment and abuse, anonymity in itself isn’t necessarily harmful,’ says Noel Bell, a psychotherapist and spokesperson for the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). In Noel’s opinion, there are some therapeutic reasons as to why burner accounts may be helpful for some people. For example ‘curiosity about an ex-partner or an estranged family member’. ‘After a relationship ends, it is perfectly human to want to know what the other person is doing. If a burner account allows someone to acknowledge that curiosity and, over time, gradually let go, it could arguably have a temporary function.’ Having a burner account might be doing more damage than you realise (Picture: Getty Images) But, he emphasises that there’s an important caveat to this. If your burner account becomes ‘a means of continually monitoring the other person’, it’s more than likely to ‘keep the attachment alive rather than help someone move on’. Ultimately, what Noel is saying is that the question isn’t necessarily whether having a burner account is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but whether it is helping someone ‘move towards greater freedom or keeping them psychologically stuck’. That, I suppose, is the ‘dangerous game’ Lucy was talking about. NonyaBidness clearly took things a step too far. Arrow MORE: Is it unprofessional to bring coffee to a job interview? Millennials and Gen X say so Arrow MORE: Son of influencer who died after fifth penis enlargement says dad had ‘nothing to be ashamed of’ Arrow MORE: I have huge respect for fans protesting the PS5 no disc policy on social media – Reader’s Feature