The OG Snapchat is my Roman Empire

How millennials used to catch their boyfriends cheating

One morning in January 2015, I woke up and decided to hack into my boyfriend’s Snapchat account. When I say hack, I actually mean that I guessed his password—firstnamebirthday—and got it right on the first try. When I heard Snapchat was removing Best Friends Lists, I panicked, wondering how I’d continue stalking my boyfriend’s questionable social media behavior.

I hear the Gen Zs asking, “You could see people’s best friends?” Gather ‘round, children. Let Grandma Kristina tell you about how millennials would catch their boyfriends cheating.

When Snapchat first launched, it was a millennial’s dream. I could send my cleavage to hot guys without them saving the photo silly pictures to my friends without clogging up my camera roll? Sign me up! As a newly single, boy-crazy twenty-something, I mostly used Snapchat to send thirst traps to my flavor(s) of the week and ugly selfies to my best friends. I’d spend hours testing out all the filters—which were quite innovative for the times—and the app introduced a Story feature well before Instagram did. But my favorite feature, by far, was the Best Friends List. You could view the top three people any user snapped the most. Naturally, I knew all my crushes’ crushes and made it an Olympic sport to end up first on that list.

When I met @mistersexpanda (his real handle was so much worse), I had only been single for a year, so I was a bit resistant when he insisted we become monogamous. While my friends kissed frat guys at keg parties and danced on tables in dark bars, I’d spent four years practically locked away in the basement of my ex-boyfriend’s house. After spending my early twenties in an abusive relationship, meeting the shy, chubby nice guy felt like an obvious choice. So, despite my better judgment, and after some pretty heavy love-bombing, I was off the market again.

It wasn’t long before the red flags started popping up. Once, after a long night of texting into the early hours, he confessed dramatically that he’d cheated on his ex-girlfriend. He seemed genuinely broken up over it, insisting that the relationship was practically over when it happened and that he deeply regretted it. I appreciated his honesty and figured it was somewhat normal for a guy to have made a mistake like that in his early twenties. What he didn’t mention was that it wasn’t just a one-time slip-up—through the grapevine, I learned it had been a regular occurrence. Slowly, little bits of crazy started seeping out of me, as I found myself questioning his past habits and wondering if they’d repeat in our relationship.

I noticed that his Best Friends list frequently consisted of other girls. At first, I thought it was normal, most of them being the mutual friends I’d met him through. But as time passed, I started noticing female colleagues and softball teammates I’d never met. His Snapchat activity sparked a new morning routine. Barely wiping the crust from my eyes, I’d wake up and open the app to see what new Best Friend appeared overnight. Then I’d craft a novel-length angry text, cry, get gaslit, cry some more, and eventually end up apologizing for acting crazy. All before breakfast.

Voicing my discomfort usually led to being left on read and ignored for hours, sometimes days, at a time. My last boyfriend would often yell in my face and belligerently call me names when we’d argue. C wouldn’t even engage. I convinced myself that I was allowing past toxic relationship habits to spill over into my new one. I was now the psycho-jealous partner in the relationship.

So, in a psycho-jealous manner, I “hacked” into his Snapchat. Immense guilt washed over me as I logged out of my account and into his. My heart instantly began racing the moment I’d correctly guessed his password. I was immediately sick, seeing that he followed numerous accounts of college girls who didn’t know they were being filmed during sex. A sad validation settled in me after learning of some other questionable fantasies he’d divulged a few months back. Throughout my workday, I’d fake bathroom breaks just to check the activity.

Then there was Bethany. I’d never seen Bethany on his Best Friends before, nor heard him speak about her. I didn’t want to risk being caught, so I didn’t open her messages. I digitally ransacked Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, trying to find his connection to her, hoping she was just another colleague. I came up blank, unable to figure out who this mystery girl was. I finally decided to log back into my account and call it quits, thinking I was being my usual crazy self. It was against my beliefs to invade someone’s privacy in the first place and my guilty conscience was gnawing at me.

I resumed my own Snap conversation with C, discussing what we’d do for our first official Valentine’s Day together when I randomly received a photo of his crotch, donning the khakis he wore as part of his work uniform. This felt random since we weren’t sexting or flirting. I immediately started shaking and said, “fuck it.” With lightning speed, I logged back into his account to see that Bethany and I were sent the crotch pic at the exact same time. After waiting sixty seconds, hyperventilating, Bethany replied. I opened the message—a video of her caressing her naked body.

He thought he’d seen crazy…

After one night of his crocodile tears, he seemed to get over it pretty quickly. I do think he was ultimately relieved that I found out. I wish I could say that I left his ass and never looked back, but the story is not an empowering one. After breaking up with him, I spent six months endlessly begging and borderline harassing him to want me. I didn’t want him back; I just wanted him to want me back so I could reject him. At twenty-four, my ego was the size of a small nation.

I did eventually get over him. It’s true what they say, you know, getting over someone by getting under someone else (or in my case, a few other someones). Let’s just say my broken heart turned me into a menace. Maybe I’ll tell that tale someday.