Instagram’s Darkest Rabbit Hole (ft. Nick Crowley)

(light foreboding music) (slow eerie music) - [Nexpo] It's Saturday night. (dramatic suspenseful music) A bridge collapses in China. Twisters makes its worldwide debut.

And over in one of Reddit's darkest corners, A peculiar mystery awaits. (dramatic foreboding music) A user named Maria has just uncovered a series of Instagram accounts, all equally unsettling, uncanny, and terrifying. I came across a post on r/instagram where somebody mentioned these creepy Instagram accounts of people who are seemingly pretending to be kids, it reminds me of pipergate in a way, and I feel like all of these pages are run by the same person because of the horrendous editing style that makes my eyes bleed.

Many of the photos on this accounts are an edit of this goofy face on a real persons body, and a lot of the bodies are in suggestive poses, which makes me think this is a definite fetish account. Is this just a really, really, really, weird hobby? It seems like the poster's first language is french, and many of the posts are just generally weird and hard to understand.

I'm curious what you guys think about this. (eerie foreboding music) With Maria's post are photos from three accounts, all exhibiting highly similar behavior: truthsticks11, stefanieschoolie, and smartschoolboy9. At a cursory glance, it's clear that all of these are connected.

They all incorporate images of children, edited in a way in which their faces rest in the trenches of the uncanny valley. They all exhibit heavy, synthetic makeup. Have massive lips, their heads are disproportionate, the saturation seems to be cranked up, all of these rest at the precipice of visual overload and absolute depravity.

Walls of text are thrown in our face about school, friends, things they're interested in, entire facets of their lives, but it's clear that these quote, unquote, "children" as they're presented, do not even exist. (dramatic suspenseful music) It goes without saying that we've seen this type of behavior before. People online trying their hand at creating an ARG in hopes of generating online attention and viral clicks.

But even still, I wonder, is this what we're dealing with here? On the account truth_sticks_11, many of the early posts carry a considerable amount of irony. Their uploads take on an almost condescending tone, lambasting the rise of online predators following and commenting on the profiles of young boys.

They take on this alias of an overly concerned parent, and make post after post after post, sharing advice about potential danger online. In many ways, this contradicts everything we've seen so far in our limited investigation. This doesn't exactly add up, especially considering that, just a few months later and completely out of nowhere, truth_sticks begins to exhibit the very behavior they're criticizing.

From March 2022 and onward, they morph from a concerned parent on a mission against online predators, to displaying images of their supposed "son" in compromising positions, sharing a myriad of highly disturbing photo edits, and even begin to follow a handful of accounts that immediately set off red flags. Truth_sticks_11's erratic behavior appears like one massive self-report, someone on a tirade against the very thing they turned out to be, or perhaps have been all along. None of this made any sort of sense, leading many to speculate that, while yes, this is insanely creepy, is any of it real?

What in the actual fuck? Really fucking weird, not really sure the reason behind it. Maybe to groom kids or something but it's really odd.

This is probably the most disturbing thing ever uncovered on this subreddit. I asked the other day if anything actually sinister has ever been on here but now I have my answer. I'm very glad that this sick person is getting exposed.

If there's any exploitation material on their account like some have been saying, nobody here should hesitate to report it to the police. Understandably, this post blew up. People left and right poured in, eager to find out who was doing this, and why.

It took hardly any time at all for Redditors to uncover other accounts in the same vein, too, as Truthsticks and Schoolboy, were far from the only ones involved here. As it turned out, there was a SchoolgirlTheresa, New Girl 12, a Stefanie Stansfield, and a trove of others all spread out across various social platforms. By outward appearances and with so many accounts involved, this almost looks like it's being done by a group.

I mean, it has to be. They talk to each other, like each other's photos, there's no way this Schoolboy dude has enough time to run all of these, especially for something like an ARG, right? Well, not exactly.

You see, Schoolboy, across all of his accounts, has a very, very strange way of putting on various personas. And, on nearly every single video- (glitching whispering music) Before this video entered production, the profile of smartschoolboy9, the centerpiece of this story, one of the only accounts with original, uploaded videos by a discernable person, was taken down. It's unclear if this was done because of policy violations, or if he's scrubbing his online presence, but as it stands, this one is gone.

That's not to say that there aren't archives though, so pardon the potato quality. (eerie foreboding music) On the smartschoolboy9 account, we can find a plethora of images and video of what appears to be a man, dressed up in school uniform. We can see him outside on walks, getting ready for school.

And showing his mini boots, that he has a very strong fascination with. It goes without saying that this person is nowhere near the age of a child, despite his efforts to appear that way. On nearly all of his captions, he talks about his life in school, his experiences with other boys, reportedly "also" aged 8, 9, and 10, and even appears to gain access to classrooms on multiple occasions.

So far, this behavior is incredibly weird and repulsive. However, these videos aren't outright illegal. Because of this, and combined with the activity on truth_sticks, some have passed this entire thing off as nothing but a massive LARP, someone with far too much free time on their hands and with very, very weird fixations.

But, after diving into this a bit more, though, I've found that that isn't quite the case. There's something I gotta show you. - [Presenter] We'll return after these messages.

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(dramatic foreboding music) In the current online discussion, there hasn't been much said about the account @stefaniestansfield. However, interestingly, it's one of Schoolboy's earliest, and arguably, most disturbing. Dating back to 2019, this man took on a persona called Stefanie.

Since the creation of this page, he has gone forth to make a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and even numerous other Instagram handles all under this alias. While he gives his other pages a considerable amount of attention, he for some reason, took a strange liking to this one in particular. All across Stefanie's profiles, he can be seen dressing as her, discussing their experience in grade school, and, weirdest of all- In a twist that comes as no surprise, the man behind this rabbit hole expresses a fantasy.

And in our hands, we effectively have another Pipergate, Daily Capper, Stefanie Stansfield. (choppy glitching music) - Hi. (eerie foreboding music) From StefanieStansfield, Me in Moorfoot, Milton Keynes, MK11.

Drssed for school. I really love it in year 7. And I love writing poetry.

My Moorfoot music heart. I race to complete my poems when I've got an early start. Heart racing, mixed race rhythms, maximizing miracles.

Rice with rap, and on the map, my Kennington, London syllables. Dancing though I know my underwear might show if I lean forward, good! Aside from the repulsive celebration of being able to spot a child's underwear, Stefanie makes a reference to Milton Keynes, a region just North of London in the UK.

This, combined with various other media he shared, quickly led onlookers to realize that this man has been making his rounds across the city of London for years. Also in this post are clear references to poetry, something we'll find to come up later. Upon searching for the name Stefanie Stansfield on Google, we're able to find traces of this person in the wild.

For instance, hidden on a random page of the Kennington Runoff, a news website serving the titular neighborhood in South London, we can see Stefanie chiming in on an article about a youth club. Here, though, their mannerisms surprisingly appear a bit tamer. Are there any unusual or rare pictures including landing areas, lifts et cetera of Kerrin Point, the tower block that stood at Hotspur Street from 1969 to 2000?

I learnt what happened to Kerrin Point but have yet to find any demolition pictures, even on the 20th anniversary of its demolition, or pictures of the play space that temporarily replaced the building. Thank you for any research into Kerrin Point. If we had no prior context to this person, this comment would exist in complete normalcy.

In a way, it's almost like this person isn't even the Stefanie Stansfield we've come to know so far, the one showcasing eerie edits, pretending to be a child, creating riddles and poetry. It's like the persona's gone. You know, part of me would believe that this person has no ties to this rabbit hole but, even here, I noticed that they just couldn't help themselves.

Stefanie Stansfield inquired about a play area, a place associated with kids. Doing any research online about this alleged play place leads to nothing. It existed for such a short period of time that hardly anyone recalls that it was even there.

It was a blip in history, so insignificant and overshadowed by the disaster that came before it that it's hardly worth mentioning. Yet Stefanie recalls it to such a degree that they're on the hunt for any pictures of it. This almost seems like even as far back as the year 2000, this person was hanging around play areas, leading me to wonder, was he up to the same antics back then, or is this act fairly recent?

(dramatic eerie music) Also on the internet is another link, this time leading us to a PDF file of a 2018 publication by a London charity called the Streatham Society. Within this, they share a myriad of news and happenings around this area of London. However on page 11, they include a segment called the Poetry Corner in which we can spot a very familiar name.

Hi to the Streatham Society. I'm Stefanie Stansfield and shy! !

! I'm twelve years of age, Year 7. I'm London-born and lived in Streatham for a while.

I've written a poem. I asked my half-brother what he remembers about the area, then I put my thoughts onto paper. I could have written much more but I wanted to keep it short and yet still include a little tribute to June Whitfield, so it's as if I've traveled through time to include so much!

I hope my poem is of some use. Yours sincerely, Stefanie. After glancing at her writing, it's abundantly clear that this poem was not written by a 12-year-old.

It shares details of buildings that were here in the 1990s, as well as references to TV actors, that would be not just unrealistic for a child to remember, but impossible. But even through this mess, there is something here to latch onto. In the poem, Stefanie refers to someone who has supposedly fed her this information about his life growing up in London, decades prior.

It's her half-brother, someone who's old enough to remember all of this. It's someone called David. (eerie upbeat music) - [Nexpo] Back on Reddit, investigators were on a similar path.

The name David was circulating as a potential suspect for days, catalyzed by firsthand accounts of those who had encountered a very similar man to this in the wild. Redditors from his area shared tales of a local figure, a man who would dress up like a child, making his rounds as far south as London, and as far north as Doncaster. (dramatic eerie music) I'll be quite honest, I was really surprised when this guy popped up on my local city's subreddit.

It's like one of them things that scared you as a child, then something reminds you of that as an adult and it puts you back a bit. We're talking like 14-ish years back. I'm 28, almost 29 now.

So he lived on my streets while I was in my last few years of secondary school and first few years of college, age 14 to 17. He was very well known by pretty much everyone who lived around that area. There was even a video of him at one point titled Donny Legend.

Me and my brother looked for this today but couldn't find it. It must be at least 14 to 15 years old now though, so it may be deleted. He spent a lot of time wearing his school uniform, usually the skirt and boots look, but sometimes a suit, basically the exact same look from his recent pictures, just with a different school uniform.

He carried around a little lunchbox with a mirror glued to one side of it. He used to stand behind trees and watch people in the reflection. He used to follow kids home from school, going tree to tree.

There were a few times he was caught, looking through people's living room windows that had confronted him in the past. My brothers and stepdad had a few altercations with him. My stepdad and mum especially didn't feel safe living on the same street as him and didn't like how close he lived to the local school, about a 50-second walk.

The police were called more times than I'd like to count, and they were never ever concerned. He never committed a crime, according to them. They were very concerned for his safety in this.

He was always seen as such a danger, but I honestly just assumed, stupidly as a naive teenager, that this guy didn't know how to use the internet, or at the very least was monitored. It's horrible he's turned up online, though I'm glad I can now be sure he's left the local city. My daughter starts secondary school next year and I'm glad he won't be around to terrorise her.

I just wish and hope that the authorities would protect the school kids where he is. This man is a known creep. I used to work at the court 20 years ago and he was in court and the paper several times for approaching and writing to underaged girls, while wearing makeup and young girls style clothing.

He usually got away without conviction because the courts believed that he didn't intend to do any wrong. He was trying to speak to those girls because he wholeheartedly believed he was a girl of that age. With the claim that this person was roaming neighborhoods as far as 14 years back, along with the statement that Schoolboy had wound up in court 20 entire years ago for writing to underaged girls, even then, it's apparent that he's far, far older than I initially thought.

This is how he remembers Kerrin Point, this is how Stefanie knew so much about an era she never lived in. Doing the math here, at minimum, Smartschoolboy9 is at least 40 years old. (dramatic suspenseful music) When I lived in Doncaster, there was a man who used to walk around dressed as a 1960s schoolboy who looked like he'd walked out of a black and white photo.

I'm pretty sure his skin was painted white. People said he was called David. (slow dramatic music) For decades, this man has been haunting neighborhoods around the UK, approaching children that are likely afraid of him; posting pictures of those that have no knowledge of his existence; and gravitating towards schools, seemingly under the belief that he's a child.

Online activity by this person, in which he's well-spoken and drops the act, though, like on his Facebook, he makes it clear that he knows what he's doing. This person is real, and this person is active. A local boogeyman, if you will, that shows no signs of stopping.

(eerie foreboding music) (dramatic eerie music) With the rise of the internet, David has harnessed social media to express his desires, utilizing heavily filtered and often AI-generated images of kids to toe the line of legality. Like we've seen, on many of his posts, he emulates parents, putting on a facade of concern for the very people he's allegedly preying on. He falsifies personalities, presenting them to real-world publications as legitimate; and, across his many profiles, he follows a laundry list of kids.

At the end of the day, Schoolboy and his plethora of alts are just the tip of the iceberg, and for all we know, countless other accounts could be hiding in the void of cyberspace. Personas emulating children, interacting with children, and creating edits of real kids that have no idea they're being posted online. This man follows countless minors, and whether he's physically harmed or has endangered any of them in the real world?

At this point, we have no idea. Going by one of his videos, however, (glitching whooshing music) (child chuckling) I truly hope that this isn't the case, but unfortunately, the evidence isn't very promising.