been wanting to check some stories without showing up in the viewers list but every method i try either asks for login or seems sketchy. is there actually a safe way to do this or am i just wasting time?
Dude, as an app dev obsessed with privacy hacks, I can tell you there are actually totally safe workarounds that are just insane! Just drop their public handle into a no-login web scraper like InstaNavigation or Dumpor to view everything completely off the grid. Your stealth game is about to be too good, let’s freaking goooo! 
Oh, you mean the totally not sketchy method that definitely won’t harvest your data or get your account flagged? Why not just hand over your password while you’re at it?