We have all been there. You wake up in the morning and roll over to check your phone. You open Instagram or TikTok to check who saw your story from the night before. You want to spot your friends, your family members, maybe even the object of your secret crush. But instead, sandwiched between your best friend and your cousin, what you see is a stranger.
The handle is something cryptic. Maybe it’s "alexousa104".
You don’t know them. You don’t follow them. They don’t follow you. But, there they are, hiding in your story views. Your curiosity spikes. Who is this person? Is it a secret admirer? An ex on a burner account? Or is it more automated and less human?
Hidden Story Behind Alexousa104
If you’ve been Googling this term or other names like it recently, you’re not alone. This particular handle is for a new take on a trend called “mass looking” or “ghost viewing,” which is becoming the latest in automation and social media marketing. And it could seem harmless (or even complimentary) to have new eyes on your content, but the truth is these accounts are really based on growth hacking scripts and data scrapping.
In this guide, we’ll dissect the case of accounts like alexousa104, deconstruct how the technology functions and help you decide whether to block, ignore or engage with these digital ghosts.
The "Mass Looking" Phenomenon Explained
To grasp why some random handle reads alexousa104 is viewing your content, you need understand the attention economy. On Instagram and similar platforms, attention is the coin of the realm. The most difficult thing about building an account is actually getting people to view your profile in the first place.
In years past people used “follow/unfollow” bots. They’d follow you, hope that you followed them back, then unfollow. Platforms eventually cracked down on this, placing strict limits on the number of follows you could make in an hour.
Enter "Mass Looking."
Mass looking is a tactic in which software scripts enable a single account to “view” millions of stories each day. The bot isn’t really watching your video. It's just pinging the server to record a view. The target is human curiosity. If you notice a new face in the viewer list who you’ve never seen before, chances are you’re going to give their profile a click to check them out.
The Psychology of the Click
Marketing firms and bot farms know all too well that curiosity killed the cat. We are wired to be attentive to who’s attending.
When you look at “alexousa104” on your views, it’s not just the visual that runs through your head:
- Induced awareness: You observe a name you haven’t heard in some time.
- Validation: You received a dopamine hit because someone new is interested in you.
- Personal details You click through the profile to check they exist.
As soon as you click, bot wins. You are now on their profile. The profiles typically have a link in their bio. It’s sometimes for a legitimate service, and other times it is an OnlyFans page; and sometimes it is a phishing link that wants to rob you of your credentials.
Why "Alexousa104"? Deconstructing the Username
Why do these bots always have such strange, specific names? If a marketer wanted to get your attention, wouldn’t they put something like “Best_Marketing_Agency” in there?
Not necessarily. There’s also three big reasons why you might see handles like this:
The "Real Person" Camouflage
Bots are always trying to avoid detection by platform algorithms. An account called "Buy_Followers_Now" is probably going to be banned in a few minutes. But at least a name like this takes on the form of an actual user's handle (Name + Location/Lastname/Appending of Numbers). It appears just human enough to have dodged the first spam screens.
A/B Testing
Bot operators typically are managing thousands of accounts at the same time. They may be experimenting with which naming conventions lead to the most click-throughs. Is “Alex” a higher-performing text target than “Sarah?” Will appending "USA" convince the user to trust the account, where simply using "RU" or "CN" won't? The number "104" is the unique identifier for this specific bot instance in their database.
The "Burner" Nature
These accounts are disposable. Its creators know that eventually, Instagram or TikTok gets wise and bans the account. They make up names algorithmically, and can have “alexousa105” up minutes after the suspension of “104.”
The Security Risks: What You Need to Know?
Typically, the fact that you see such term within your list of story viewers is not in and of itself a security threat. Pure viewers cannot hack your phone or steal your passwords simply by watching your story. But interacting with the story comes with many perils.
The "Link in Bio" Trap
The bio link is what will get you, chiefly. These mass-viewing accounts, many of them are pushing you into funnels for affiliate scams or phishing sites. One way they do this is through a “You won!” scam or an ad for a "private" dating site. Clicking these links could reveal your IP address, download malware to your device or trick you into giving away login info on a fake login page.
Data Aggregation
Not all bots are out to sell you something; some are scraping data. They are recording what time you post, where you tag your location and who else is in the photograph. This information can be rolled up to create databases of active users that can then be sold, for advertising or other nefarious purposes.
Signal Boosting
Even if you don’t click on the link, visiting their profile sends a message to the algorithm that this bot is a “high quality” account — it’s clearly generating engagement. This allows the bot to live longer and target more people.
How to Protect Your Privacy
If the thought of random strangers visiting your digital space, such as alexousa104, gives you the creeps, there are steps you can take to secure your account.
Switch to Private
The best way of preventing it is to lock your account. Mass viewing bots usually go for public accounts because they can watch its stories without being requested to follow it. Once you switch to private, the bot will crash. It cannot see your story, and it flits to its next target.
Don't Engage
The truth is, if you need to keep your account public for reach or business purposes, the best course of action is to just ignore them. Do not click their profile. Don't text them, “Who is this?” (Bots going to ignore you regardless).
Use the "Hide Story" Feature
When a bot just won't let go, feel free to hide your story from that sucker.
- Go to your story settings.
- Select "Hide Story From."
- Type the username — you know, something like this term.
- Select the account.
Report and Block
It's a good thing to report those things because it benefits the community! It notifies the platform’s trust and safety teams of that behavior. After reporting, block the user. This will stop them from being able to see your profile.
What’s The Future Of Automation In Social Media?
The ongoing war of attrition between social networks and bots is a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. As A.I. gets more advanced, alexousa104-style bots could increasingly become indistinguishable from reality. We may soon see broader bots that can write plausible comments, or even respond to DMs, using Large Language Models (LLMs).
The most valuable thing online, however, is still authenticity. They may script numbers, but they can’t script a real connection. The bots serve as a reminder that the internet is an overcrowded, noisy place.
Final Thoughts
The next time you spot alexousa104 or a similar alphanumeric stranger skulking around your views, don’t freak out — but also don’t step in the trap. It’s not a secret admirer, and it’s not a ghost. It is only a script, after all, churring away on a server somewhere, fishing at you for your attention.
Curb your curiosity, safeguard your personal information and direct your attention to the actual strangers interacting with you. It’s how much is your peace of mind worth in digital life versus some click you don’t know about.
