No Longer Anonymous: Why I Read (and Submitted to) Deux Moi

ILLUSTRATED BY AUBREY JAYNE

WRITTEN BY BEATRICE KAHN DESIGNER MEGAN LEE

In mid-January 2023, Pete Davidson was less than a mile away from my high school in Beaverton, Oregon. How do I know this? The information was posted by the illustrious Deux Moi, an Instagram account that currently has 1.3 million followers. Multiple times a week, DeuxMoi’s Instagram stories are proliferated with screenshots of anonymous submissions about celebrities, athletes, and public figures. People want to see where public figures are, what they are eating, who they are with and even what they are wearing – like Pete Davidson “making out with someone in the Nike Employee store in Beaverton, Oregon.” I am not here to describe the function of DeuxMoi. There are plenty of articles from the Atlantic and the New York Times that will outline Deux Moi’s notoriety, specifically their anonymity. I am here to share a secret – that I partake in DeuxMoi’s complex gossip world. And I went against my own code of ethics to do so.

My personal involvement in Deux Moi-centered gossip began when I visited New York this summer. I had to be in the epicenter of DeuxMoi’s world to encounter a celebrity. I was outside of Cha Cha Matcha in SoHo admiring my green drink when I saw influencer Devon Lee Carlson and her sister Sydney enter the store. Subconsciously, I whipped out my phone and took a picture of the influencers, and in the back of my mind, I knew that it was my opportunity to send a submission to DeuxMoi. I was so excited to be a part of the “community” that I invaded a stranger’s privacy.

I never saw my submission.

What motivated me to try so hard to make it onto DeuxMoi’s Instagram stories? Virtually all of the DeuxMoi submissions state the now infamous “anon pls,” a phrase requesting anonymity. I wanted to be part of the community – a community centered around gossip.

DeuxMoi says it best in a New York Times article: “this information is not proven to be based in fact.” Before every outpour of gossip or celebrity sightings, DeuxMoi makes it clear through written form and video that some submissions may not be truthful. Truthfulness is the paradox of gossip.

Why am I so enamored with gossip and why do I spend my time tapping through possibly false statements about people I will never meet or know? DeuxMoi allows me to indulge in gossip with the choice of reciprocating. Rather than a face-to-face gossip session, I can choose to engage with DeuxMoi, as I did with my New York sighting. At the end of each week, on Sunday Spotted postings, celebrities will appear in grocery stores, malls, restaurants or even the Nike Employee store in my hometown. I read the gossip knowing that none of it has been verified – that is part of DeuxMoi’s allure.

I learned that two of my dorm neighbors are also ardent followers of DeuxMoi. Cami Kohnke and Kate Houston are first year students at UO. The first time I met Cami and Kate at our residence hall meeting, they each were sporting DeuxMoi’s eye-catching merchandise. Cami was wearing the DeuxMoi sweatpants with the saying “Anon Pls” printed on. “Anon Pls” is short for anonymous please, a request made by most submitters to DeuxMoi. Kate wore a DeuxMoi hoodie with a slogan for the restaurant Nobu, a frequent celebrity venue. Kate began following DeuxMoi in 2020 because during the pandemic, “life was boring.”

For Cami, DeuxMoi is a platform to learn interesting stories about people who are so often ‘in character’ or incognito. She said, “over the weekends my mom and I would scroll through and gossip.”

Some of Cami and Kate’s favorite people to look for in DeuxMoi’s stories were the Real Housewives, the Kardashians and actors from various Netflix series. Cami mentioned the second season of Netflix’s Ginny and Georgia; a follower asked DeuxMoi if there was any gossip about the show’s star Felix Mallard. Followers delivered, providing first hand accounts of Brianne Howey and Felix Mallard. By nature, DeuxMoi is interactive. The account depends on followers to share sightings and stories and ask questions. DeuxMoi has expanded their portfolio from a single Instagram account to merchandise, a book and additional Instagram accounts that reveal blind items. Blind items are submissions where no celebrity is named – the identity is determined through subtle clues. Kate said she follows both DeuxMoi and RevealMoi, an account that “reposts the blinds and people discuss it in the comments.”

Deux Moi has become more than an Instagram account for people to anonymously submit celebrity anecdotes. DeuxMoi has transformed into a brand for people to buy into. Just as I bought into the allure of submitting a “spotted” when I saw Devon Lee Carlson at a matcha store, the gossip community of more than 1 million people is special. Partly because DeuxMoi remains a private Instagram account, fewer people are in the know. Celebrities such as Bella Hadid and Madeline Cline follow DeuxMoi, demonstrating that public figures want to know if they appear in “Sunday Spotted” submissions. Cami and Kate said that at UO, DeuxMoi is “underground, maybe not as well known” as it may be on the East Coast or bigger cities. Cami expressed that her hometown in Arizona was never relevant for celebrity sightings. DeuxMoi may be lesser known in Eugene, but gossip will always be ready to be shared – online or in person. The addition of attention-grabbing sweatshirts and attentionholding novels increases DeuxMoi’s grasp on the gossip world.