Content note: this story deals with nonconsensual intimate image abuse and online harassment.
On November 2, 2025, University of Florida sophomore Maddie Kowalski, then 19, found out that intimate footage of her was spreading from campus to campus. She says she never agreed to be filmed, and never agreed to have the footage shared. By that evening an anonymous account on X, @SteveCumfull, had posted a compilation video under her full name. X took the post down, but the same account posted it again late the next day. It then shared a screenshot of a cryptocurrency token it had bought with her name on it, with a market cap of $11,400.
A major investigation by WIRED, published on September 14, 2026, traces what happened next and the online subculture behind it: the burnerverse.
A fan network with a darker side
The burnerverse (also called “beev” or “BV”) is a loose network of anonymous “burner” accounts on X, mostly run by students and alumni, that exists mainly to talk about college sports. Many of these accounts are harmless meme factories. But WIRED identified 10 women who were doxed by the network, most of them between the ages of 18 and 21. The pattern repeats. Gossip or explicit images of a college woman surface on YikYak or Snapchat. Burner accounts then push them onto public platforms, and aggregators and sports media personalities sometimes amplify them.
In Kowalski’s case the numbers show how fast X’s machinery moved:
- #Maddiekowalski trended nationwide on X, with more than 1,200 posts using the hashtag.
- Content about her was viewed more than 8.5 million times.
- Harassers posted her old photos and her father’s LinkedIn, called her parents through the night, and placed bets on whether she would take her own life.
She was not the first. Nine months earlier, Ole Miss student Mary Kate Cornett had been doxed the same way.
Platforms, campuses and police
The story is also a hard look at how institutions responded. X did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. According to Kowalski, the University of Florida dropped a Title IX investigation after about a month because the video had technically been filmed off campus. Gainesville police eventually filed a legal request to X for subscriber information, IP records and account details for @SteveCumfull and a few other accounts that shared the video early.
After nine months, police charged three men with sexual cyber-harassment, a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. The man accused of running @SteveCumfull faces an additional third-degree felony charge of sexually cyber-harassing for financial gain. Kowalski has also filed civil lawsuits in the Northern District of Florida against all three men, seeking financial damages.
Fighting back in public
The personal cost has been heavy. By December 2025 Kowalski had withdrawn from the semester’s classes and moved back in with her parents. After intensive outpatient therapy she was diagnosed with PTSD. Her family says they have spent tens of thousands of dollars on reputation management and legal fees.
Instead of disappearing, she chose to speak. On December 19, 2025, she introduced herself on Instagram and pointed other victims toward legal help. In late March 2026 she posted a TikTok video calling out the network, and it passed 271,000 likes. She now earns most of her income from TikTok Live, where she has around 42,000 followers. The WIRED feature is the first time she has spoken to a mainstream news outlet.
