Exclusive interview with Queen’s Baddies

The story behind Queen’s most famous anonymous Instagram

Image by: Justice King

If you haven’t yet heard of the Instagram account Queen’s Baddies, you’re probably one of few. 

Queen’s Baddies is an Instagram account notorious for posting pictures of supposedly “beautiful” students, baddies if you will, who go to Queen’s.

Students are able to submit their own pictures or those of their friends to Queen’s Baddies’ DMs to be featured on the page and viewed by their peers.

Posting their first Instagram photo in December of 2016, the account has since garnered 20,300 Instagram followers with more than 200 posts with students featured.

Since the person behind the Queen’s Baddies account remains a mystery to most of us, we decided to get in touch through their requested means of contact – Instagram DM – to learn more about this now-iconic social media sensation.

Unfortunately for my inner investigative journalist and your own curiosity, the mastermind behind the Instagram account remains anonymous to me and the rest of The Journal staff, so from here on out we’ll refer to this mystery person as QB.

The renowned Instagram account is currently run by QB with some lucky advisors carefully selected to help out.

The Queen’s Baddies Instagram first started when QB noticed the many “beautiful” people around campus. Inspired by the style of the famous Humans of New York photoblog, QB set out to create a similar social media platform for Queen’s students.

“Most schools already had an [Instagram page] recognizing people on their campuses,” QB said. “I decided to create a page to let them all know that Queen’s doesn’t have just good-looking people, we have baddies.”

The website has gained lots of traction since it started just under a year ago, with their Instagram followers consistently increasing by the thousands.

“Compared to when I started this just nine months ago, the overwhelming response and the participation of the Queen’s and Kingston community in submitting countless people via [direct messages] and email so that they can be featured has been awesome.”

One of the myths about Queen’s Baddies is that it exclusively features students who are considered the most attractive on campus. However, QB insisted this isn’t the case.

“Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t just based on looks and Instagram followers — we like to feature people that bring something unique, whether it’s their aesthetic, dressing style, or popular demands.”

The choice selection for people featured isn’t an easy task either.

“There is a committee of advisors who all agree on who should be posted. So, anyone who gets posted has been exclusively picked and decided on upon by a group of people.”

With all the DMs submitted and new followers joining in on the fun every day, it seems that Queen’s Baddies is going to continue featuring students from around campus and be an unstoppable force on social media.

QB’s biggest purpose for the Instagram account? 

“We are doing this to provide a platform to celebrate the amazing people that go to Queen’s, and to show how diverse our community is and to give more reasons to be proud of the school we call our own. Cha Gheill!”

Tags

instagram, Social media

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