Virtual Flaneur Experiences: Instagram and The Record Store
Nanna Verhoeff examines mobility not only in the physical world, but how navigating online worlds is an act of movement through space. Verhoeff argues that moving through online spaces is in fact similar to driving a car through physical space, stating that when “navigating the screen of a handheld gadget, the subject is to an extent in charge of his own mobility.” (99). In this way, we could view the way people engage in online media as a kind of virtual flaneur.
Mike Featherstone states that “in contrast to the slow loitering of the flaneur, who has to wait to reach the street-corner to change direction, the electronic flaneur can, so to speak, jump out of the street into another street at any time. Indeed, the jump, to continue the metaphor, can be to another city.” (915). Featherstone argues that the virtual flaneur is burdened by information overload (915), however I would argue in subcultural communities this is somewhat thwarted by how niche the exploration can be.
Within subcultural communities, there are many ways that virtual flaneur experiences can be seen. For subcultural musical communities, one example is the way people are able to engage with independent record stores across the world through social media, particularly Instagram. For Anke Gleber, the flaneur’s perspective is above all a visual one (52), therefore I would argue Instagram is the perfect medium for the virtual flaneur. Instagram allows for users to act as virtual flaneurs by forging their own path amongst endless possibilities, and navigating different pages at their leisure, similarly to how original flaneurs “read the streets” (Gleber 52).
Dripper World (which shut in 2018) was an independent record stored situated in Punk Alley in Brooklyn, NYC, which specialised in underground punk records and paraphernalia. Like many independent record stores, Dripper World followed an unconventional business model; the store was incredibly small and was build inside a repurposed shipping container, it had irregular hours, and catered to a very niche market with marginal profits. However, due largely in part to Instagram, the space became incredibly well known across the word. Garnering 17,000 followers on Instagram, which is incredibly striking when you realise you could fit no more than three or four people in the store at any one time. Dripper World became a site of subcultural tourism, both physically and virtually. It became so well-known virtually that there is now a book ‘Welcome To Dripper World’ to be released on Sacred Bones later this year (“Welcome to Dripper World”).
Similarly, Big Love Records in Tokyo has become an iconic space via their online presence. Heralded as one of the best record stores in the world, and as having “a selection of Australian music to rival most local vendors” (“10 great record stores from around the world”), you have probably even seen someone sporting their tote bag before. Through Instagram, it’s arguable many subcultural virtual flaneurs are intimately familiar with the Big Love’s store, what it looks like and what it stocks, before they ever enter the store — if in fact, they ever do at all.
Independent record stores exist in nearly every city on earth, but are largely seen as standalone spaces. A passionate member of a subcultural musical community may have a strong connection to their own city’s stores, but cannot physically connect to similar spaces existing concurrently around the globe. However, the virtual flaneur can travel to, inhabit, and observe these spaces via Instagram. From New York’s Dripper World, to Japan’s Big Love Records or London’s Low Company, to Melbourne’s own Lulu’s, the virtual flaneur can travel across each of these, and thousands more, in seconds.
“10 great record stores from around the world.” Double J, ABC, accessed 5 November 2019. https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/10-great-record-stores-around-the-world/10989816.
“Welcome to Dripper World.” Sacred Bones Records, accessed 5 November 2019. https://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/products/sbb011-dripper-world.
Gleber, Anke. The Art of Taking A Walk: Flanerie, Literatre, And Film in Weimar Culture. Princetown University Press, 1999.
Featherstone, Mike. “The ‘Flaneur’, the City and Virtual Public Life.” Urban Studies. Vol. 35, no. 5, 1998, pp. 909–925.
Verhoeff, Nanna. “Introduction”, Mobile Screens: the Visual Regime of Navigation, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2012, pp.13–26.
