Maddie Kowalski stayed largely out of the public eye for months. The 20-year-old University of Florida student had kept her life private at least until a case surrounding her harassment began moving again.
Gainesville police charged three men with sexual cyber-harassment in August, according to WIRED. One of them, 19-year-old Kamran Ahmed, also faces a third-degree felony charge for sexually cyber-harassing for financial gain. Police linked Ahmed, Brendan Pitfield and Jacob Gomberg to anonymous sports “burner” accounts on X. Pitfield has pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge.
The case dates back to November 2025. A compilation of three videos showing Kowalski in sexual encounters began spreading on X. She was only 19 at the time and has said she did not consent to being filmed or to the footage being shared publicly. By the following afternoon, #Maddiekowalski was trending nationwide, while content about her had been viewed more than 8.5 million times.
The burnerverse has targeted other college women
The pattern isn’t limited to one campus or one target. WIRED identified 10 women who have been doxed by the burnerverse, most of them between 18 and 21. Some were targeted after intimate images or videos were posted without their consent. Others went viral over rumors that could not be verified.
A College Girl Was Exploited on Camera. A Network of Anonymous Men Got to Work | Maddie Kowalski is one of countless young women who’ve had their lives destroyed by the burnerverse, a loosely connected online community of sports fans. Now she’s fighting back
by u/Hrmbee in technology
The accounts involved are part of a loose network known online as the “burnerverse.” Most of these anonymous college sports accounts are fairly innocuous, posting memes about recruits and competing teams. But another faction uses the same anonymity to target young women through nonconsensually shared intimate images, videos and unverified rumors.
The same tactics can spill beyond college campuses, too. One Pittsburgh diner ended up doxxed and sued over nothing more than a bad restaurant review. Kowalski’s case played out on a much bigger scale. A screenshot showed more than 220 X users participating in an X Space discussing her nonconsensual intimate images.
University of Florida’s Title IX investigation into Kowalski’s case was dropped after about a month. Kowalski says UF told her the video had been filmed off campus. A Gainesville police complaint later alleged that Ahmed and Pitfield used university IP addresses to access their burner accounts. Kowalski also alleges that her sorority’s early response focused more on the organization’s reputation than her wellbeing, saying, “the focus was on the organization’s reputation and not on my welfare.”
She addressed the harassment herself in an Instagram video posted December 19. “Everyone else was making videos about me, and I couldn’t make one or say anything for myself,” she said. She described how the harassment had affected her and her parents, while the video itself drew tens of millions of views and plenty of support. But burners continued to leave crude comments and propositions. That divide is familiar from other online pile-ons, including the one between YouTuber SSSniperWolf and jacksfilms.
Mary Kate Cornett, another student targeted by the same network months earlier, said the burners seemed to have a repeatable process. “It’s like they have this blueprint for what to do every time they decide to destroy a girl’s life,” she said.
For Kowalski, the criminal charges are a major development after months spent trying to identify the people behind the accounts. “Who would want to ruin my life?” was the question she kept asking as she tried to make sense of what happened. Kowalski has also filed civil lawsuits against all three men, alleging sexual cyber-harassment and seeking financial damages. As of September 3, Ahmed and Pitfield were still students at the University of Florida.
Kowalski says she is determined to make it work at UF and find a way to move forward. The criminal case remains active. But the burnerverse has continued targeting other women, leaving Kowalski to rebuild a normal life while knowing the same network is still out there.
