One day, several students from Academic Magnet High School reported receiving a very confusing notification from Instagram: “Zane Papalopolous followed you.” Something Instagram users would normally brush off or “swipe” away, soon became an intriguing mystery.

In Zane’s bio, he had displayed “Chicago —> CHS,” making it appear as if he had just moved here. Seems to be normal, right? The next part is what confuses students. “AMHS 25’” was displayed in his bio. First of all, the apostrophe is supposed to be in front of the 25 “Zane,” which could lead us to believe that the person running this account does NOT go to Magnet because that’s common sense I fear…The important part is that this Instagram user is claiming to be a part of Academic Magnet’s class of 2025, yet no one– teacher or student– has ever heard of him.

Sousa Waggoner took the liberty of direct messaging “Zane” in which he kept up his shenanigans and did not admit to being anyone else. See below:

This is what she thought during the interaction:

“Zane is clearly a poser and the phony behind this persona must be brought to light/justice.” -Sousa Waggoner

After this interaction, we noticed that Zane communicates a little…(some might say)…“zestily.” Not just any regular person would use a laughing cat emoji or the wholesome teary-eyed emoji, leading us to believe that the real Zane thinks themself to be a little funny person. This is a very important detail. Who do we know that would use these emoji choices? On top of this, the specific middle name that he mentioned could give away aspects of his identity. Could this just be the first male name that came to Zane’s mind, or could it have been a stab at Sousa? Coincidence?….we think not. If not, this must be someone who stays up to date with the AMHS Class of 2025. Who has enough free time on their hands to stay so invested in another school’s business? This question, along with the suspicious emoji choices, are what led us to our first hypothesis as to who is behind Zane…stay tuned for more on this.

Several weeks after these first interactions Zane, emerging from hiding, direct messaged our ever acclaimed “AMHS Decisions” account, where students submit their college decisions to be posted. Requirements of being posted on this account include being an AMHS Senior and committed to college. When you send your submission, you also send a baby photo, which Zane proceeded to do. Senior Lily Thompson runs this account, and after being sent Zane’s baby photo she asked “who is that,” since Zane is not real so she was wondering who’s baby photo she had just received. Zane, being daft as ever, answered “my brother” as he tried to sway the conversation in the direction of the other little boy pictured in the photo. Zane’s attempt to be posted on the AMHS decisions account was never going to work, due to the fact that AMHS student’s senior photos are used in the post, and since Zane does not exist, he does not have a senior photo. Obviously. ZANE.

Despite the fact that he never got posted, he tried to keep up the act and reposted CU Boulder Instagram posts, the school in which he “committed” to, very frequently on his story. He also changed his Instagram bio and added “Boulder 29’” to it, and, as we’ve come to expect, messed up the placement of the apostrophe yet again. It’s really not that difficult Zane. Please study up on the proper use of apostrophes.

In case you’re having doubts about Zane’s “reality,” we took one extra step to prove that he literally does not exist. After looking up his name on a CCSD Gmail account, nothing popped up. If Zane was a student at any CCSD school, his name would have appeared on Gmail. Therefore, Zane does not go to a CCSD School and he does not go to Magnet.

Another crucial aspect of this case that cannot be ignored is Zane’s attempt to build credibility by tagging other people in his posts and having other accounts comment on this page. At first glance, this is a very convincing attempt. However, after furthering our investigation ever so slightly, it is clear that a decent amount of these comments also come from fake accounts. That’s right. This goes even further than good old Zane P. Some of the comments are in fact real accounts with over a thousand followers and a variety of posts that actually show the same person’s face in every photo. They also seem to go or have gone to LBHS at some point. However, the ones that do not, such as William Rumskin, David Rumskin, and Maxwell Sterling, either have a very poor social media presence or are just as phony as Zane. All three of these accounts have less than 200 followers and limited posts. They claim to live in different states, or have moved here from different states and now go to LBHS. They also all comment on each other’s content. Does Zane (IRL) have some buddies in on this sham? Or does he run all of these accounts (we later realized this is not possible as William Rumskin correctly has the apostrophe placed before the “28” in his bio, and Zane is incapable of this)? However, the details found through diving a bit beneath the surface are very telling. We also would like to know about the “paper towel incident!?!?!?!?!” (See Zane’s comment below…)

So after reading this you might be wondering….. who IS Zane Papalopolous???? Well. We are just as confused as you are, but we have some hunches. Zane is definitely a boy. We just think so. We believe Zane to be someone at another school, who is oddly invested in the happenings of the AMHS class of 2025. As it is clear that Zane has PLENTY of free time on his hands, we do not believe it to be anyone from AMHS. Thinking back on the both real/fake people that commented on Zane and his friends’ posts, we believe the man behind the mask is also someone that attends Lucy Beckham or lives in Mount Pleasant and is popular amongst the people there. Also, respectfully, LBHS students definitely have more free time than those at AMHS. When we also take into consideration the silly emoji choices, pointing us towards someone with a bit of personality, we can come to a bit of a conclusion. We predict that Zane Papalopolous is none other than Ernest (Cullen) Humphreys (or someone adjacent). At the same time, we also think it could be a one Grant Utsey (or someone adjacent). Both attend LBHS and are invested in the AMHS zeitgeist. We have not reached out to either of them to confirm.

In the end, we hope that someone gets to the bottom of this mystery some day, but it probably will not be us as we have schoolwork, sports, jobs, and fruitful futures to attend to. Well wishes to Zane and his friends (IRL an not IRL), and those who try to crack this case.