The Saga of J and N: A Tale of Digital DrAma

Every so often, life hands you a story so absurd, you feel compelled to share it. This is one of those stories. It's a tale of two people, ‘J’ and ‘N’. Their insecurities and bad decisions collided in the most ridiculous display of online antics I’ve ever witnessed. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s a little disgusting—and, somehow, it’s all true.

J and N are a couple of people dealing with their own mess of infidelity and mutual distrust. Rather than working through their issues like adults, they opted for a much more theatrical approach: deflection and distraction, aimed squarely at others, and what we would soon find out, a few close acquaintances who shared their own absurd (albeit hilarious) tales of similar behavior from these two people - but mostly J. We would come to find by other females who we all are friends with, that this bizarre obsession and cryptic stalking is a pattern that's been going on for years. To this day, I’m still not entirely sure why they thought we'd make a good scapegoat. Maybe it was convenience, maybe it was projection, or maybe they just thought it’d be fun. Whatever the reason, they went all in, turning social media into their personal battlefield.

Their tactics were creative, I’ll give them that. They didn’t just rely on run-of-the-mill harassment. No, J and N turned to Spotify of all places, creating playlists under pseudonyms. Each playlist seemed meticulously curated, with song titles and lyrics that hinted, insinuated, or “spoke directly” to their delusions. Imagine logging onto Spotify and realizing someone’s using numbers or emojis as a passive-aggressive message board. It was so ridiculous that it was hard not to laugh.

Their social media games were no less absurd. Instagram stories became their weapon of choice—cryptic quotes, carefully chosen images, and captions dripping with vague animosity. Facebook wasn’t spared either, with posts designed to nudge mutual acquaintances into the drama. If the sheer amount of effort they put into this spectacle wasn’t so cringe-worthy, it might have been impressive. This "secret garden" was a monument to their carefully curated world that could hopefully overwrite the real one. But as with all illusions, the truth had a way of breaking through the cracks.

Things escalated when anonymous accounts started popping up. They slid into my DMs, liked and commented on my stories, and left cryptic messages that reeked of desperation. The patterns became too obvious to ignore. These weren’t strangers—this was J and N leveling up their antics in desperation to deflect. Clearly J will go to great lengths to keep N's attention away from his family even if it means drawing the focus on his "friends".

By this point, my friends and I were equal parts amused and disgusted. Their behavior was like watching a bad reality show unfold in real time. The mutual consensus among those who knew about it was: “How do grown adults have this much time on their hands?” It was the kind of scene you couldn’t look away from, even if you wanted to.

Curiosity got the better of us, and we decided to use our resources to dig deeper into the source of the anonymous accounts. Unsurprisingly, all roads led back to J and N. The digital breadcrumbs pointed to Middle Tennessee and Baja California—two places that seemed to be their hubs of chaos. It was hilarious and pathetic all at once. They’d gone to all this trouble, only to be exposed in the most anticlimactic way possible.

It has been almost two years since we last visited Todos Santos where we last saw them and hadn’t seen or spoken to them since, yet those two years have been riddled with online harassment, stalking, and non-stop activity on all of our social media accounts. Every platform seemed to bear their fingerprints—accounts made and deleted, messages sent and blocked, and obsessive attention to even the smallest posts. It was relentless.

There were days, especially early on, when the sheer volume of their obsession was exhausting. It wasn’t just the inconvenience of blocking them or reporting their accounts—it was the underlying disbelief that grown adults (who think they are anonymous) could pour so much energy into something so toxic. The most baffling part was how little connection we had left, yet somehow, we had become the centerpiece of their fixation. Looking back, it was clear they were chasing ghosts—perhaps trying to regain a sense of control or meaning in their own lives. For me, it was just noise, a chaotic soundtrack - which fits their description.

What struck me most, though, was how easily this could have been devastating for someone else. Sure, my friends and I found their behavior amusing, but not everyone has a circle of people to laugh with or the mental bandwidth to see it for what it was: a desperate attempt to distract from their own problems. For some, this kind of harassment could be isolating or even harmful. That realization stuck with me.

So, there you have it: the saga of J and N, a digital DrAma. Two people whose online theatrics became an unintentional comedy. While their antics were amusing in the moment, they also served as a reminder of how easily the internet can be weaponized and how important it is to have a strong support system. If nothing else, their bizarre behavior gave me a story worth sharing—and a renewed appreciation for the absurdity of life in the digital age.