The Burnerverse: the Untold Story of a Hateful Culture

Alex Gervais ’28

Graphic Design Editor

We’ve all heard of “locker room talk,” a universal excuse for men to be derogatory towards women and marginalized communities protected under the umbrella of “boys being boys.” It’s a phenomenon that happens in dorm rooms and frat houses across Trinity’s campus and amongst almost all of Trinity’s men. It used to be that when this kind of language was made public, there was genuine uproar: most famously, the reaction to Trump’s Access Hollywood tape before the 2016 election—although strikingly not enough uproar to keep him out of the White House. Now, these very same locker room sentiments are blasted all over social media in the Burnerverse (colloquially referred to as the BV by many users).

I first stumbled upon the BV in August of 2023. Much of the popular posting in those days was inconsequential: it was Ole Miss frat boys doing ego measuring contests through their Peter Millar outfits or flexing a private jet flight to a frat formal in Punta Cana, tame by today’s standards. The posters in the BV were college-aged men, many of them in frats, many of them at flagship SEC state schools. However, their posts began to gain wider circulation, the algorithm targeting young men like myself with the BV’s content, ultimately inspiring men on college campuses across the US to join in on posting. Now the BV has a foothold in most institutions of higher learning, especially those with active Greek life. It consciously breeds a deeper culture, a YikYakian commitment to anonymous speech that allows men to create cult followings within their hate.

The BV has some familiar calling cards when it comes to posting. Many users will post with the hashtags “#shrink” or “#expand,” denoting behavior they see as unworthy or worthy respectively. They’ll also often use “#LANK,” an abbreviation meaning “Let A Naysayer Know,” coming from former Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe’s clothing brand. This expression first gained traction during a segment of ESPN’s “College Gameday” in January 2024, when host Pat McAfee mistakenly believed the “N” in the abbreviation stood for a racial slur. Posters use #LANK to express the aforementioned racial slur without specifically saying it (although many users will post the entire slur with little restraint). The BV also has its own mythology and canon: specific users are mentioned across posts, specific incidents are referred to, and specific women have their identities doxxed again and again for the entertainment of the burners.

Perhaps the most infamous case of this doxxing happened in late February. On Feb. 25, unsubstantiated rumours began to swirl on X that an Ole Miss Kappa Delta sorority sister named Mary Kate Cornett was cheating on her boyfriend with her boyfriend’s father. This was quickly parroted across the Burnerverse, young men looking to prove their virality to their peers. The next day, the story was picked up by major sports entertainment outlets, Pat McAfee discussing the rumour on his ESPN show and an array of personalities at Barstool Sports platforming the alleged story. In the wake of the viral fallout, Cornett is now suing McAfee and Barstool for defamation, and also appeared on NBC Nightly News for a tell all interview with Tom Llamas, telling the audience how the salacious rumors tore her life apart, forcing her to move into emergency housing and shift all her classes online. Cornett is not the only example of this harassment: dozens of women have been targeted by the BV.

The story of the BV is one that’s been distanced from their own misdeeds. In reporting on the Cornett story, the Athletic refers to the allegations as an “internet rumor,” the New York Post only refers to X as the primary perpetrator of the rumors and the aforementioned NBC News story lacks any mention of the BV. Be it irresponsible reporting or simply lacking cultural knowledge, major media outlets have time and again failed to accurately report that the BV is the breeding ground for this conspiratorial hate. This creates a dangerous abdication of responsibility where posters and their community are not actively held responsible for the vitriol they put out.   

Underpinning the entire BV is a complex of white, male fragility intertwined with conservative comfort. The BV represents the men who went through high school during the Biden administration, the men who now perceive wokeness as an attack on their very existence, the men who have flocked to conservatism because they feel left behind. It’s their escape into a virtual, consequenceless world that lets them think the maligned thoughts and say the hateful words they truly want to express, all while being praised for their speech by their peers. This escape into fragility is enhanced by the complicity of social media companies, specifically X, in platforming this content. The rumors targeted at Cornett and other women went viral because the algorithm lauded and boosted them; the proprietary black box that drives our internet consumption actively promotes hate. Social media companies have long lapsed their original role as content moderators that deplatformed hate speech and pushed it to fringe sites like 4chan, instead they actively platform and embrace it.

Addressing the issues of the BV is a two-fold solution. It’s essential that media coverage first matches the reality of the situation. It is not merely “the internet” or X as a whole that’s spreading these rumors, it’s the Burnerverse. Mainstream media outlets must recognize and report on this fact. It’s also necessary to realize that these posters are sons and brothers, friends and teammates, they’re real people who can really be held accountable. These accounts are set up under real emails, with real, traceable IP addresses. The identities and lives of these posters are out there for those who want to seek a recourse against this hateful anonymous posting. 

Until we create a media and social environment that is invested in recognizing this dangerous community, it’s an individual responsibility for each of us to purge this hate when we see it. It’s a time not to allow leniency and excuses, but instead to speak out and change hearts and minds. I implore the people on this campus who participate in the Burnerverse to either #expand their hearts or #shrink their voices. 

If you have a burner and don’t want to respond to me in person, my Twitter handle is @alexgervaiss. Fire away.