Dozens of female UNT students find ‘creeper’ photos posted

DALLAS – The Dallas Observer reports “there is a creeper at the University of North Texas’ recreation center.” The rumor started circulating last week across social media. Instagram stories and Reddit posts warned female students that they may among the dozens of unsuspecting campus gym users whose photo had been taken and plastered on a website, “Candid Girls,” alongside sexually objectifying captions. The website is a forum of rudimentary design that promotes taking and posting images of women who are in public spaces and are unaware their photo is being taken. Individual posts, which are captioned with explicit buzzwords generally reserved for click-bait pornography, receive tens of thousands of clicks and comments. Comments left by users detail the sexual gratification they derived from the images.

When one UNT student, Kate S., saw the warnings of a Candid Girls user targeting the UNT Pohl Recreation Center, she began scouring the site. It didn’t take her long to find one user, whose account has now been deactivated, who boasted a hefty portfolio of “college girl” photos taken in the UNT gym. Kate, who regularly works out at the gym, found dozens of photos of herself. When she scrolled through the user’s account, she found images of 57 different women, all taken in the Pohl Rec Center. “I was absolutely horrified. My heart dropped … The first thing was just like, how did I not know?” Kate, whose last name was not included in this report to maintain her privacy, told the Observer. “Every woman always knows ‘I need to pay attention to where I am at all times.’ And I thought at least at a campus gym, I thought I would be safe. But I guess that’s not really the case.” The photos can no longer be viewed on the Candid Girls website because the poster deactivated the account last Friday evening, but Google searches still show a preview of the images with their explicit labels. In a statement shared with the Observer, a UNT spokesperson said the campus is “aware” of a Reddit post “??about an individual taking photos” at the campus gym.