Bad Boyfriends Get Called Out on Instagram

“I haven’t gotten any yet, and I think I’m just going to deal with it as it comes, but I kind of let them just dig their own grave,” says 27 year-old Alexandra Tweten of possible retaliation from the men she shames on her Instagram account @ByeFelipe. Tweten started her account a month ago and already has more than 200k followers and has appeared on Good Morning America. Tweten, a former Ms. Magazine intern who lives in Los Angeles, Calif., started the account to publicly shame men who verbally attack women over text and social media platforms. Her own experience and those of friends inspired Tweten to create the account. “I wanted to get the conversation going as a whole and for everyone to see this general trend of how some men think they can speak to women,” she tells Yahoo Style.

A spin on a popular line “Bye Felicia” from the 1995 film Friday (“Felicia” is someone you don’t care about), @ByeFelipe’s sole purpose is to expose men who speak to women poorly. Women are taking screenshots from online dating sites, texts, direct messages, and then email the offensive phrases to @ByeFelipe. Identities of the men are revealed as much as possible; such as their photo, location, and age. None of the men posted have come forward, but one man did apologize to Tweten and explained that he has a rage problem. Tweten does not encourage women to engage with a man displaying rage.

Tweten stresses she is not trying to prove that all men do this. “I have met a lot of great guys online, and I even met my last boyfriend on Ok Cupid,” she says.

Rather, Tweten wants to promote social change in the way men and women interact with each other on various platforms. Rage issues, cyber stalking, and even geotag stalking are just some of the ways that women have been threatened lately. (Just last month, 27-year-old Mary Spears was shot and killed in Chicago after rejecting advances from a man.)

I asked Tweten if she has any intention of removing posts if a violator asks. “If a man sincerely apologized to the person he sent the message to, and promised to never send messages like that again, I would think about removing the post. But other than that, I will not remove a post because they can’t take back any emotional trauma they have caused these women.”