We Need To Talk About Flume’s Weird (And Handsome) Instagram
@flume was once basic as fuck, but now it's a work of art.
Flume’s dominance of Australia’s dance scene is well-known, but less documented is the Sydney-born producer’s equally important presence on Instagram.
While most DJs fill their Instagrams with twee/dumb-ass tour antics, press shots and sick-as live shots, over the past year Harley Streten’s has become something different — a steady mix of oddball thirst-traps, dog posts, and unflattering selfies.
Last week, Music Junkee contributor Jack Tregoning tracked Flume’s evolution as a musician, running us through the 15 tracks that chart his journey from bedroom producer to the world’s biggest stages.
Now, we trace another journey: his Instagram, where a nascent Streten goes from basic bitch to secret Instagram king. Here are the six stages of his ascent to the throne. Long may @flume reign.
#1. The First Post (aka A Star Is Born), July 2012
Seven years ago, Flume was 20. At this stage, Streten was signed to Future Classic, having won the label’s competition call-out for new acts, but his huge, debut LP was still a few months from release.
Here, Streten’s uploaded a pic of a KFC lunch, using one of those God-awful vintage filters — as was popular at the time. “Sitting in KFC carpark by myself in trackies,” he wrote. “Life is good.”
Little did he know that by next January, he’d land four songs in the Hottest 100 and have a #1 album. For the next few years, Streten remained a keen Foodie, his Instagram still filled with low-res shots of Fruit Loops, stacks of bacon, Zappos and weird café pies perfect for flat-lays — though, even in his early days, he preferred an unflattering selfie.
#2 The Self-Deprecating, Kinda Dorky Star, 2012-2015
For a while, between Flume and Skin, Streten’s Instagram was pretty run of the mill stuff — mostly tour life antics, inter-sped with basic posts about loving coffee and more so-so food pics.
Besides the international travel and guest appearances from Dillon Francis and Skrillex, it’s all very reminiscent of a friend from high school you’ve fallen out of touch with, but truly only wish them the best with their life.
And when you check in, they seem pretty happy with their Ben & Jerrys pint, or night in watching horror classics, or taking blurry photos of CDs they rate.
He was also doing that thing most expats do: establishing their brand as ‘The Australian’, with posts about Vegemite being a tour essential or Foster beer. Everything seems very spur-of-the-moment on Instagram, uploaded without too much thought or assistance: who cares if it’s blurry or low-res?
It’s very much a portrait of a 20something travelling the world and finding everything from a new KFC burger, a Flume meme, shots of a cloud and ‘MURICA-styled food serves worth sharing with their followers.
Perhaps it was just of the era; most of us are more sophisticated with our social media use now, Flume included, but there’s a lovely lack of polish or cohesion to these years.
#3 The Moment Of Genius, September 2 2014
On September 2, 2014, Flume leaned into his dumb posts with a long self-filmed video of him eating whipped cream from the can.
Again, you might say this was prime ‘Oh, Harley from high school’s having fun’ material, but we’d point towards the comic timing of the video — the way it escalates, how the cream explodes out at one point.
We see a glimmer of genius here. Before long, we also see our first instances of thirst-trapping — in-between dorky food selfies and blurry shots of Streten and Lorde having “LA rooftop hangs”.
#4. Comedic Thirst + Terrible Selfies, 2015-2017
As if he shed his Skin, sometime in 2015 Streten’s Instagram presence began to feature more solo shots and selfies. That year, Kim Kardashian-West released selfie-book Selfish; perhaps he felt inspired by it or the ultimate hot take of 2015, ‘Your Selfie Is Radical Self Care Or Whatever’.
Or maybe he, like many of us in our mid-20s, just became more comfortable with himself.
Either way, Streten started having more fun on Instagram. His joke posts became less basic, a little odder. His selfies were the kind that hot people take — purposefully bad, as if to prove that even with the worst angles, they still beat your best.
His selfies became more common — sometimes they had purpose, like promoting a show, or announcing his support of Voting Yes in Australia’s postal plebiscite. Sometimes, they didn’t. And occasionally, but less and less, there’d be a miss-fire; like a series of shots of moths for unknown reasons.
Overtime, the comments caught on: photos of him shirtless at the beach or playing tennis saw people tag their mates, or celebrate his dad bod. The cute semi-thirst traps began, but soon, they’d evolve.
#5. Approaching The Throne, 2018
While Streten’s glasses first made their big appearance during Charli XCX’s star-filled video for ‘Boys‘ in 2017, those wire frames only began to feature more and more in 2018. It is possible with better eyesight, Flume’s vision of his own Instagram grid sharpened. Whatever happened, 2018 established that Flume is very, very good at Instagram.
His captions became truncated, but his photos lost their terrible framing; they became distinctly simpler (though every now and then he’s prone to a basic shot, but hey, that’s #TourLife), more calculated.
He played more with looking dumb, too — but he immediately follows it up, more often than not, with a thirst trap. Where most of us haven’t mastered the faux self-depricating-but-still-hot pic, Flume began to.
Then, sometime around September ’18, he got his son, Percy. As if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing with these pics of him shirtless with a dog! Before long, Percy got his own Instagram, @lilfriedchicken69, the kind of Finsta name the most intimidating person at a party tells someone you’re standing next to (but not you) to follow-request.
It’s not just pure thirst that has elevated Flume’s Instagram to must-follow. Sure, we do thirst (and judging by the comments, we’re not alone), but he’s genuinely funny, in a subtle way.
This picture of him with his dog in a backpack is overbearingly cute, but it’s also dumb; he’s riding a scooter around his house in LA. Maybe we’re giving him too much credit, but Streten always seems to be winking at how crazy stupid being a DJ is.
#6 The Future Is Flume, December 2018 – Forever???
In December, Flume evolved; if previously, he felt more comfortable in his Skin, now he was standing there saying, ‘Hi, This Is (Hot) Flume‘. Where previously, he’d only semi-mastered the deprecating selfie, he suddenly spoke the language as if a native tongue.
A wide-brimmed hat or fake tattoo, a toothy smile or double-chin; he simply knows how to add in a certain element of ‘je ne sais quoi’ to his photos.
He is the new king. Even Pornhub gave this below one a like.
But the photo that necessitated this article came only a few days ago. As if designed by algorithm specifically targeting me (and everyone else), Streten uploaded a selfie that straddles the line between self-aware and self-indulgent. He’s stretched out on his bed in a blue sweater, cuddling his dog to point of a chokehold. In his other hand are four Magic, The Gathering cards.
The caption may read “my three favourite things”, but Streten’s eyes are dead. Truly haunting; don’t you just want to stare, endlessly? Or, at the very least, double tap?
Who knows what else awaits. All we know is that the future is Flume.
Flume is headlining Listen Out across Australia this September and October.
Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and he’s terrified that Flume will read this. Follow his Instagram journey.