Last summer, I noticed a surge in pay-to-post IG accounts. You may have noticed them too. When I started to receive an influx of commenters telling me to “promote it on ______” I did some digging. First, I messaged a few of these accounts to ask about their rates. Second, I did some DIY sleuthing—small things like following the followers, checking the account creator details, and scrolling through all the posts. What I found truly shocked me. This is that story:

A few months ago…

IG user @adia0_1 commented on a photo I posted to The Poetry Lab’s IG account saying:

“Promote it on @_poetic._verse”

At the time of this writing, the @_poetic._verse account has 302,000 followers. I messaged the account and asked how much they charge for a promoted grid post. They responded immediately:

This immediately seemed suspicious to me. How were these accounts able to swindle Meta out of their much-coveted advertising money? Who were all these poetry-loving followers, and how had @_poetic._verse been able to grow a following of over 300k seemingly overnight?

I didn’t reply back.

A few days later one of The Poetry Lab’s team members tagged us in their weekly events round-up; that post received a comment from @charles.aa1 saying: “Promote this on @inkkedfeather”. This was striking to me because it was both a different user and a different promo account. I checked around our recent posts and I found another “Promote it on” comment, this one referring me to @thewriterswarmth. Then, I deep dived on @thewriterswarmth because we shared at least 7 followers.

I didn’t share followers with any of the other pay-to-post accounts. It seemed as though this particular account would be a good place to look into further. I checked out their top grid posts, read through some comments, and looked at the number of likes. If I was going to collaborate with this account, my questions were:

• What is the allure of this account?

• Who runs it?

• How did they establish an audience of 641,000 followers?

I started scrolling down their feed.

Down, down, down.

I scrolled for thirty seconds. My phone was slow to load new photos, eventually the page was just white and I assumed it had stopped loading and maybe crashed. I closed the app, started it up again and went straight back to @thewriterswarmth.

This time I scrolled slower, but the same thing happened: the page stopped loading and just turned white. Except, something was off. I tapped on the field of white. It was a post! There were a series of white squares posted to the grid. It wasn’t a loading failure, it was something deliberate the page had created, but why?

What I found on the other side of the white grid posts was very alarming. Hundreds of posts of young women, each one looking younger than the last. Most of the captions simply said “#followme” and the comments—almost all from men—ranged from heart emojis to “Beautiful I love you” to requests to video chat on WhatsApp. Some of the comments were simply phone numbers. Occasionally, a comment appeared to be from the account of another young woman requesting that commenters also follow her. These comments stood out because they used tons of heart, tongue, and kiss emojis.

All of the young women appeared to be of South East Asian descent and in my sleuthing I’ve discovered that many of these accounts are based in India. Often the photos are heavily filtered, and could have even been altered or photoshopped. Even if these are imaginary young women—the intent behind the posts remains the same—to exploit young girls. While some posts are suggestive, none display nudity and therefore follow Instagram’s code of conduct. However, they are still incredibly problematic. The suggestion of imminent exploitation is clear: I’m underage and waiting for you.

Further research showed the @thewriterswarmth account originates in India and was created on March 14, 2019. I’ve uncovered many accounts that use this method to gain followers. While @thewriterswarmth did not change their username after switching from posts of young girls to promoting writers’ books, others certainly have. Here are two more accounts I’ve discovered, one promotes books and the other promotes visual artists and painters:

@_the.blendspace_
Followers: 690k
Date joined: January 15, 2019
Account based in: India
Former usernames: glorious.arts, twilightstreamers, priya_mehra88

@whistlercraft
Followers 625k
Date joined: March 14, 2019
Account Based in: India
Former Usernames: 1 @payal_tomar555
Notice under “former usernames” that they both started with the names of women. 

Here is another one I’ve uncovered that markets to musicians and podcasts:
@sky.recordz_
Followers: 4.1M
Date joined: January 19, 2019
Account Based in: Not shared
Former Usernames: none

While @sky.recordz_ hasn’t changed their name, they do still have posts of young women at the bottom of their grid post and yes, 4.1 million followers. I reached out to this account and asked what they charge for a featured grid post: