Wisconsin Volleyball Team Explicit Photo Leak

About

The Wisconsin Volleyball Team Explicit Photo Leak refers to the leaking of nude photographs and videos of the University of Wisconsin women's volleyball team that were taken after the NCAA 2021 championship and throughout their 2021-22 season. The explicit media was leaked on 4chan, Reddit, Twitter and Imgur in October 2022, causing controversy online that surfaced across social media platforms like TikTok. Many memes also surfaced about the Wisconsin volleyball leak continuing into late 2022, as well as a police investigation into who leaked the media.

History

On October 18th, 2022, the first mentionings of the Wisconsin volleyball team leak surfaced online, starting on 4chan's /sp/^[1] imageboard within a thread dedicated to women's volleyball. Roughly five hours later, an NSFW image of the team in their locker room surfaced on Reddit's /r/NCAAgirls,^[2] however, the post has since been banned and deleted. Multiple Twitter^[3][4] users started discussing and joking about the images and videos after 7 p.m. EST on October 18th, 2022. For instance, Twitter^[5] user MikeLitoris56 tweeted, "Just heard some hideous discussion about some inappropriate pics regarding the girls Wisconsin volleyball team. Where can I find these pics? So I can report them of course," earning over 440 likes in six days (shown below). Purportedly, the videos were leaked in a private Discord server on October 18th from a currently unknown internet user, though this is unconfirmed.

On October 19th, 2022, the official Twitter^[6] account of the UWBadgers tweeted an announcement regarding the photo leak, reiterating that they'd contacted the UW-Madison Police Department about the "private photos and video." The tweet received roughly 1,200 likes in five days (shown below).

STATEMENT FROM UW ATHLETICS

We are aware that private photos and video of UW volleyball student-athletes that were never intended to be shared publicly are being circulated digitally. The unauthorized sharing is a significant and wrongful invasion of the student-athletes' privacy, including potential violations of university policies and criminal statutes. When the student-athletes became aware of the circulating photos, they contacted the UW-Madison Police Department. UWPD is investigating multiple crimes, including sharing sensitive photos without consent. UWPD is not investigating the volleyball student-athletes for wrongdoing in this matter. Our top priority is supporting our student-athletes and we are providing them with the appropriate services and resources.

On October 20th, 2022, Fox News^[7] first reported on the leak, reiterating that Wisconsin police were investigating the leak. Soon after on October 20th, an anon on 4chan's /pol/ ^[8] board posted a screenshot of Fox News' article, inspiring a thread that received mass engagement and hundreds of replies in a few days.

Online Reactions

Murmurs of the Wisconsin volleyball leak surfaced across social media going into the remainder of October 2022. For instance, on October 19th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user monstermeat01 tweeted a photo of Morty Smith from Rick and Morty showing his nipples, captioning it, "Wisconsin Volleyball after beating North Dakota State in the season opener," gaining roughly 3,900 likes in five days (shown below, left). On October 20th, Twitter^[10] user Philmycrak tweeted, "damn y’all some horny mofos. here’s the video of wisconsin volleyball," and attached a screenshot of what looked like a playable video meant to trick the "horny mofos" referenced. In four days, the tweet received roughly 9,000 likes (shown below, right).

TikTokers also generated discourse and memes about the photo leak in late October 2022. For instance, on October 20th, TikToker^[11] sabes24 posted a video with the "We Fucked Up" sound and text overlay reading, "The Wisconsin Volleyball team during Thursday practice." The video gained roughly 2.4 million plays and 265,000 likes in four days (shown below, left). On October 22nd, TikToker^[12] cor3ybarnes stitched the aforementioned video, explaining the leak to his viewers. In two days, it received roughly 10.5 million plays and 945,200 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References