This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Kristen, 32, a Chicago-based server best known for her TikTok account, @NotKahnJunior. Kristen's last name has been withheld for privacy reasons, but her identity is known to Insider. Kristen uses her TikTok account to "consensually dox" users and reveal their birthdays using just social media. 

My "consensual doxxing" content started completely by accident. I saw a TikTok trend of people using voice-over audio that says, "Tell me you don't look your age without telling me you don't look your age," then they would claim to be a totally different age. I saw a lot of people lying — like people who were clearly 25 saying they're 50.

There was one woman who said she was 21, and a lot of people in her comments were arguing that she looked older. A couple of days later, she posted another video saying, "How about you actually guess my age if you know it?" I took that as consent for me to make a funny video. In the video, I said, "Well, I know that you're not 21 because I went on your Instagram and saw your friend tagged you in a photo. You're in the same sorority, her age is this old, because she posted her driver's license and covered her age with her thumb, but she didn't cover up the year. So you are actually 29 to 30 years old."

And now it's evolved into something wild: People just never stopped commenting, "Hey, try me, try me!" When I made a silly TikTok about how I could find someone's birthday, I didn't expect to become a data-privacy educator or someone who taught people how to lock down their social-media profiles. I was just showing people how creepy I am! But I've turned it into a very helpful tool. My top video has 15 million views right now, and I have over 30 million views total, which is absolutely insane to me.

On her investigative methods

My method is so chaotic. I'll go through my TikTok comments, pick about 10 people, and click through to their profiles until I find someone where I'm like, "OK, this seems like it's tough." Then I start to look harder, and if there are at least one or two interesting steps, I go for it. People really enjoy when I use unconventional steps that are more than looking at their Facebook and seeing that their mom wished them happy birthday. In one of my videos, I was able to figure out a girl's identity because her initials and her fiancé's initials were on a pillow in the background of a TikTok, and then I found her Facebook profile, which said she's engaged to someone with those initials.