The 'Criminal Minds' Cast is Doing Some Really Weird Stuff on Instagram

CBS's absurdly popular Criminal Minds has been averaging between 12 and 14 million viewers per episode since it started in 2005, so the cast's social media accounts understandably attract the attention of a lot of fans. Despite this, some significant members of the ensemble have been consistently going out of their way to flout viewer expectations.

If you look at the Instagram accounts of Criminal Minds' longest running cast members, almost none of them make any sense from a TV celebrity perspective. The exceptions are A.J. Cook, who plays Jennifer Jareau (because she doesn’t have an account at all), as well as Kirsten Vangsness (Penelope Garcia) and Joe Mantegna (David Rossi), whose accounts include a predictable amount of on-set pics and public appearances. Look at the rest of the cast (and ex-cast) though, and things get decidedly weirder.

Things start slow with Thomas Gibson, who played Aaron Hotchner. He has an account that can best be described as confusing, thanks to the fact that it has almost nothing to do with acting and everything to do with food. Follow him and most of what you'll get is this:

Then there's Shemar Moore (Derek Morgan), who appears like a regular celebrity at first, on account of his plentiful shirtless muscle shots. That is until you notice the ads he posts for his own brand of ladies pajamas. This is a real thing:

Aisha Tyler, who's been on Criminal Minds since 2015, also had a pretty normal Instagram account until about a month ago, at which point she started posting cryptic messages about... mayonnaise:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcit-1snf0F/?taken-by=aishatyler

Reddit discussions have tried to figure out what the mayo thing is about, but nobody seems to have any solid answers.

Where Criminal Minds cast weirdness really starts to kick in though, is with Paget Brewster (who plays Emily Prentiss). To give you some idea of Brewster's sense of humor, her imdb photo features her in a dentist's chair, grinning with chipped teeth, goggles on and hair pulled back -- unusual for a female television star (even one who does do strange things on Drunk History now and again).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0108295/mediaviewer/rm1737305600

On Instagram, Brewster has, for the last year, posted nothing but her finger pointing at a variety of objects, accompanied by two-word descriptions.

It is, frankly, mesmerizing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWTp7EXhMOK/?taken-by=pagetpagetgram

But, hands down, if you want to see some truly bizarre online behavior, you have to go to this guy, Matthew Gray Gubler (who plays mega-genius, Dr. Spencer Reid).

Here's Paget Brewster handily pointing him out to the unfamiliar:

Gubler's Instagram account is frequently the stuff of surreal, vaguely comedic nightmares:

Last year, he started celebrating Halloween on September 1, like this:

Gubler is also pretty great at creating Monty Python-esque moments of comedic excellence. Just wait for the thrust at the end:

Like Paget Brewster, Gubler is more than happy to mock himself and his appearance (before Criminal Minds, he was a successful model):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSFC7rkDckT/?taken-by=gublergram

One of the most amazing things about Matthew Gray Gubler, however, is the fact that he has single-handedly -- and seemingly accidentally -- created a sort of oddball cult around himself. These days, when he shares his bizarre doodles and paintings, more often than not, random fans get them tattooed on themselves.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRWnMR6DoXf/?taken-by=gublergram

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXef7-ujzaI/?taken-by=gublergram

There's no doubt that working long-term on a show that has an exclusive focus on the dastardly deeds, and horrifying mental states, of serial killers might require a serious amount of comic relief. Maybe that's what's causing all of this unlikely online behavior. No word yet though on why no one from CSI has gone this nuts...