Earlier this month 27 year-old Alexandra Tweten from LA set up the instagram account Bye Felipe (based on the Bye Felicia meme) where people send in examples of pricks getting arsey when you reject them online, or don't want to chat. 'It all started when a woman on Facebook posted a screenshot of some messages she got on OKCupid. It was a man saying he wanted to start a conversation, and she didn't respond - twelve hours later, he just replied "Asshole",' she told The Debrief. 'I thought it was really funny - I had recently gotten a message too, this guy had sent the same message to me three times in a month and when I finally just said no he came back with "Why the fuck not?"'
This, obviously, led to an in-depth Facebook comment-discussion with other women posting similar stories, so Alexandra decided to set up an instagram account to record it all, and a gmail for people to submit their screenshots. She immediately got 20 submissions and did an interview with *The Atlantic. *Since that came out last Monday, things have snowballed. 'I'm probably getting about 50 per day since the article came out. I try and filter it a little bit - there are a lot of tumblrs and instagram profiles dedicated to weird/creepy messages so I wanted to focus on the hostile messages that they get, without it being actually violent,' she explains. 'I kind of go after the formula: guy messages girl, girl doesn't respond or rejects, and guy lashes out.'
It's pretty much entirely one way, which isn't surprising considering research showing that women receive around 20 times more messages than men - Alexandra puts the weird rejection outbursts down to a genuine frustration. 'I get it, I understand that men are frustrated with the process. Girls will often wait for a guy to message them, sure, but that doesn't excuse this behaviour!'
Since it all kicked off, she's already seen some fairly extreme screenshots. 'I did get one that was actually really scary. I didn't post it because my account is mostly making fun of these guys and it's supposed to be sort of funny because they're frustrated and desperate. This one submission was a guy threatening this girl, telling her "You'll have a reason to call the police",' she remembers. 'I was like "Oh my goodness, did you get a restraining order?!" but she was fine, it had happened months ago and yes, she had got a restraining order.'
She leaves the genuinely frightening messages to accounts like When Women Refuse, preferring to basically out the guys who throw their toys out of their prams like little kids. It still doesn't feel good when it happens to you though, especially because she's noticed a lot of the submissions focus on appearance. 'In our society, women are told that our best asset is our looks and I find it interesting that the thing that these guys go after is appearances. They'll say "You're ugly" so I think making fun of it is taking away that power,' she says. Despite the transparency of holding these morons up to public scrutiny and derision, she predicts that things aren't going to change anytime soon.'I think this reflects a trend in society in general and is just a symptom of a larger problem. Women will continue to get disgusting messages like this until society changes. Also, the guys who are sending these messages probably aren't looking at Bye Felipe.'
In terms of the response, though, there have been overwhelmingly positive responses coming from both girls and guys. 'I've gotten a lot of people saying thank you, its really nice. I got a message from a guy thanking me for making it, because his little sister is online dating and was getting messages like this,' she says, but she's also crossing her fingers that she won't get trolled off the internet. 'I haven't received any [trolls] yet, I'm sort of expecting people to jump on board soon,' she says. 'I don't know how I'd respond to it if it happened - I mean, I'd probably just respond in the best way possible or ignore it. Or write an open letter to the haters...'
Don't we all. In the meantime, if you get any pricks going mental because you don't fancy talking to them, send your screenshots to byefelipe@gmail.com pronto.
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Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.