Simon O’Connor, who has played guitar in Modest Mouse since 2021, has apologized to a young fan for sending inappropriate messages on Instagram, including a sexually explicit meme. O’Connor wrote on the Modest Mouse subreddit, where the original allegations were posted, that he mistook the fan for a troll with a history of “messing with” him from fake accounts.
The fan who posted the allegations says they were 16 at the time of the interaction and had their date of birth in their Instagram bio. O’Connor opened a direct-message conversation with a sticker that read “Simon calls your bluff, BUZZZ.” He portrays the message as a mistaken “gotcha” to show the fan, who had liked several of his posts, that he had identified them as the troll. He then sent a graphic meme of a naked man—censored in the Redditor’s post, but allegedly not in the original message—and viewed the Redditor’s Instagram story counting down to their 17th birthday, before messaging the word “sorry.”
The fan responded that they assumed he had been hacked. O’Connor responded, “Wish I was hacked just had a party night and looking at everything with one eye ya know.” According to a screenshot in the post, he later wrote to the fan, “You did blindside me with a gaggle of likes and then very little intro besides bikini pics so we are both to blame.” That message was deleted, and he ended the conversation, “I did it again.”
In his apology, O’Connor presents the interaction as a deliberate provocation of the misidentified person, followed by a swift backtrack. “After a few minutes, I realized that I had made a mistake and this was not the person who I had dealt with before,” he wrote. “I unsent the messages and immediately ceased communication. I’m genuinely sorry to the person who received those messages. They didn’t deserve to be put in that position, and I’m sorry for the stress and attention this has brought them. I know some people will choose not to believe me, and I understand that. I can’t change what’s happened. All I can do is tell the truth, take responsibility for my mistake, and apologize.”
Pitchfork has emailed Modest Mouse’s representatives for comment.