Social media is an unavoidable facet of modern life, and while we’ll never make fun of people for using it (we wouldn’t ask you to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube if that was the case) we do quite enjoy pointing out examples of objectively awful people getting a much deserved comeuppance because of it. For example, why not revel in the schadenfreude of…
10. Drug Dealer Caught Taking Literal Baths with Money
In 2016 a British man by the name of Levi Watson came afoul of the constabulary when he was accused of being a big ol’ drug dealer. Watson vehemently denied the claims and told the authorities he clearly couldn’t be a drug dealer, because drug deals have money, and he had only “pennies” to his name.
As you can probably tell by the title of this entry, Watson was indeed a dealer of drugs, and was caught when the police casually scrolled through his Instagram feed and found a picture of him sitting in a bathtub full of money. This unsurprising twist roused the suspicion of the fuzz as normal, non-drug dealing folk rarely have enough money to throw handfuls of it in the tub. After discovering more pictures of Watson posing next to bottles of champagne and other shockingly suspicious items like wads of cash and Lamborghinis, the police promptly arrested Watson and sentenced him to 7 years in jail.
Watson, apparently not learning his lesson, joked about the sentence using the same Instagram profile that had gotten him arrested, prompting the authorities to delete it forever and increase his sentence. Because screw him.
9. There’s a Starbucks Barista Ruining Spoiled Kids’ Photos
While there’s nothing wrong with taking a picture of your pumpkin spice latte, everyone who doesn’t do that likely finds you just all kinds of annoying. It’s narcissistic, irritating, and most of all, kind of pointless given that there are literally millions of the exact same photo on Instagram. Clearly the world needed a hero to stem the tide of identically framed triple Frappuccinos out there. The world got one in the form of Reddit user, bemyfuse.
In short, all bemyfuse does is position the stickers for a particular order right over the iconic Starbucks logo on any cup belonging to a group of gaggling preteens who act rudely towards the staff. This impressive act of passive aggression accomplishes nothing, save for annoying the kids who just spent $5 on a coffee just to take a photo of it for Instagram by ruining that photo. Now if only we could find someone to dunk the phones out people’s hands when they try to take a picture of their lunch, we’d be closer to a perfect world.
8. Woman Banned from Every National Park for Being an Awful Artist
Social media is a great place for artists to share their work and thanks to various social media platforms, thousands of people have found an outlet for their creativity that allows them to earn money pursuing their passion. There is, however, a time and a place for art. For example, we don’t think anyone would disagree that millennia old rock formations probably shouldn’t be used as a canvas to plug your Instagram page. Casey Nocket disagreed with that sentiment.
In 2016, Nocket was arrested and banned from half a billion acres of US land (every national park in the US) for defacing eons old, protected rock formations with her Instagram handles and a crappy self-portrait using acrylic paint. To make the whole thing doubly douchey, Nocket then took pictures of the vandalism and posted them to Instagram.
Initially Nocket remained staunchly defensive of defacing national treasures specifically protected by the government for the enjoyment of future generations by saying her childish daubs were “art.” Which, to be fair, they were. But art scrawled across protected landmarks is still a crime so Nocket was arrested, fined, and banned from every national park for causing damage to national treasures, and for generally being an idiot.
7. 50 Cent Called Out for Posing with Piles of Money After Claiming to be Broke
50 Cent, contrary to what you may think about the rapper, is actually a remarkably savvy businessman who has made a number of startlingly astute financial decisions over the years. For example, investing in and promoting Vitamin Water, which was eventually sold to Coke, earning him some $100 million. Money Mr. Cent then went right ahead and pissed up a wall.
Fiddy spent a significant portion of his earnings on a massive mansion and various other items to cement his baller status, forcing him to file for bankruptcy in 2015. In an effort to maintain his image as a straight G, Fiddy tried to quell the very accurate rumors of him being broke by posing for a photo of himself sitting next to a phat stack of cash arranged to spell out the word “broke.” Something we’re guessing made more sense in his head.
Although the photo was popular with his fans, the government was less amused and brought the rapper in for questioning about him apparently hiding undeclared assets. Hiding, in this case, meaning bragging about them on Instagram. 50 Cent claimed the money was simply a prop used for music videos, which prompted a further investigation from the Secret Service, who investigated him for counterfeiting. When the money was found to be a prop, 50 Cent was basically called an idiot by the government and then told his finances would be scrutinized even more carefully. Fiddy took the news poorly, claiming he was being treated unfairly by the government helping him pay off 32 million dollars’ worth of debts without going to jail.
6. Kids Brag About Smoking Weed; Immediately Get Arrested
Given the current political climate, it’s fairly likely that marijuana will be legalized to some extent throughout most of the States in the next few years. That said, people who smoke weed are still amongst the most irritating people in the world simply because they seem unable to talk about anything other than smoking weed. If you don’t know a person like this, consider yourself very lucky because this person is invariably all of the annoying.
So it may be kind of satisfying for people who do know a person like this to know that in 2013, a 17 year old girl was promptly arrested for bragging about smoking what we assume was the dankest weed, complete with a picture on social media (the specific site was never identified). We know nothing about the girl in question, partly because she was underage and partly because she was never booked by officers, meaning the only thing we know about her for sure is that she was white.
5. Man Brags About Getting Away with Attacking Royal Marine; Gets Called Stupid by Judge
On Christmas eve 2015, an utter prick named Ben Scott brutally attacked a Royal Marine on leave from Afghanistan named Mark Jolly, punching him in the back of the head (unprovoked) like a big man. Scott was quickly arrested and later charged with assault in April the following year.
Scott was eventually given a suspended sentence (meaning he wouldn’t go to jail) and a stern dressing down by the judge. Literally 45 minutes after avoiding jail time for assaulting a soldier, Scott posted a picture of a bottle of champagne on Facebook with the caption “Time to celebrate!!! real decent people prevail in the end and that scum mark jolly can stay at the bottom of my shoe where he belongs, I WIN.” Spelling and grammar mistakes aside, the post was an obnoxiously gloating tirade that caused a furor on social media.
The judge presiding over Scott’s case later revised his leniency, noting that he’d clearly not learned anything, and sent him straight to prison to carry out the rest of his sentence, being quoted as saying “today you must accept the consequences of your stupid, arrogant behavior.” Scott later profusely apologized for his actions, claiming that the whole thing had been twisted to make him the bad guy, because there’s obviously a scenario in which attacking an unarmed man from behind, at Christmas time, is understandable.
4. Inmates Brag About Crimes, In Jail, Using Smuggled Phone; Get More Time Added
In 2015, workers in the British prison system got kind of annoyed when they began receiving links to a YouTube video of two men being held at Her Majesty’s leisure, rapping from inside prison.
The men, identified as Demehl Thomas and Moysha Shepherd, recorded a short video of themselves rapping about their crimes from inside HMP Birmingham using a smuggled cell phone, which they then decided to inexplicably post to YouTube.
It didn’t take long for HMP Birmingham to notice the video and charge both men for making an unauthorized recording behind bars. Amazingly, despite there being literal timestamped video evidence of the crime, Moysha Shepherd pled not guilty to it. Something he had good reason to do, seeing as he posted it the day before he was set to be released. Instead of being released, Shepard was sentenced to an additional 2 years in prison and has the unusual honor of being the first person charged for recording something behind bars without permission since the law was introduced in 1952. All for the sake of the 10,000 views on YouTube the video eventually got before being taken down.
3. Identity Thief Caught Because he Kept Instagramming his Dinner
The digital age has made stealing a person’s identity a lot easier. Thankfully though, it has also made catching the people who do this easier too, provided they’re narcissistic asses. As was the case with Nathaniel Troy Maye and Tiwanna Tenise Thomason, a pair of prolific identify thieves who were caught in a 2013 sting operation due to their crippling habit of Instagramming their food.
To make this whole thing deliciously ironic, the pair were caught after being identified by an IRS investigator while eating a restaurant called the YOLO Restaurant. After noting the couple’s tendency to take pictures of their food, the IRS had the investigator meet them at a Morton’s, knowing the pair would be unable to resist taking a picture of one of the restaurant’s steaks.
After they did exactly that, the IRS simply searched Instagram for photos tagged “Morton’s” from that day and had the informant identify the steak, then the couple from the other photos on their profile. From that point on it was simply a matter of identifying the pair from the profile, which was astonishingly easy given that Troy Maye’s Instagram profile was @troymaye.
Yes, the most prolific identify thief in the United States was caught because his Instagram profile used his own name.
2. Thief Caught by Cameraman Whose Camera he Stole, Using his Stolen Gear
The 2016 Rio Olympics were among the most controversial in recent years, in part because of the amount of crime present. And we’re not just talking about the crimes committed by the athletes, Ryan Lochte.
One of the biggest thefts of the Olympics, at least money wise, was the theft of $40,000 worth of camera equipment from a News Corp photographer, Brett Costello. Costello was robbed while eating at a café and was obviously distraught, but was able to continue doing his job thanks to a generous equipment loan from Canon.
The thief would arguably have been able to get away with the theft if he hadn’t have tried to use Costello’s own jacket to go behind the scenes of the Olympics. Yes, the thief was so stupid he tried using the credentials of a famous photographer who looked nothing like him to wander around behind the scenes alongside people who knew Costello personally. The thief was almost immediately caught and arrested. Though Costello’s equipment was never recovered, we have footage that quickly circulated social media of the criminal’s face the moment he realized how screwed he was. So we’ll count it as a big win anyway.
1. Rich Kids are Getting Their Parents Arrested for Fraud by Showing Off
There’s an unusual and surprisingly popular trend online wherein the children of the super-wealthy post pretentious pictures showing off how much money they have. While these pictures certainly offer an astounding view into the lifestyles of the super-rich, they additionally provide the IRS with all the information they need to nail their parent’s for fraud.
Yes, the IRS and various governments around the world are using sites like Instagram, and specifically the posts of braggart, trust fund brats, to size up the parents’ assets and compare them to their declared earnings.
Because the parents of these kids often have no idea what the hell Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter are, they’re often oblivious to the fact their kids are showing off assets they’d rather not have the government know about, leaving them open to prosecution.
Fraud investigators have managed to seize yachts and private planes, and stick rich fat-cats with huge bills for tax evasion, all because their kids couldn’t resist posting about drinking champagne in the club, or photos of stacks of cash. As a final, amusing story for you to consider, there’s even a story about an unnamed heiress losing nearly a million dollars of her daddy’s money after a thief hacked into her accounts because her password was the same as her dog’s name. Money the thief got away with because the heiress was so ditzy, she didn’t notice a million dollars fly out of her account.
Man, it’s almost like some people don’t deserve money.