An Interview with Depop Drama: The Bizarre Shit That Happens in the DM’s
The Instagram account Depop Drama is where secondhand fashion meets accidentally spending £12,000 on a bralette, a postman spitting in packages, and angry customers. With over 600,000 followers, the page shares nonsensical, outrageous did that really happen tales by Gen-Zers hunting for their next thrift fix.
It’s witty and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Which — in the world of DeuxMoi, WRNS, Shit Bloggers Post, and Gossip Girl’s fatal modern reboot —hits just the right amount of depth.
The mysterious founder behind this account spoke to PILOT over email about their secrets to finding the latest tea, or really, as much as they can reveal.
Tell us about Depop Drama.
Depop Drama takes outrageous messages submitted by anonymous members of the Depop community and posts them online for everyone to have a laugh!
Depop Drama in 3 emojis?
🤬🤪😈
When and why did you start it?
Being a Depop user myself, I started to get funny or ridiculous messages and would share them with friends. Before I knew it, I had loads of these random screenshots on my phone with nowhere to put them. In 2018, I decided to start uploading them to Instagram, and before I knew it people started tagging their friends. It then started to become bigger and people started submitting [messages]..
Top 3 submissions?
I think the one where someone received a dead frog in their package from Australia was pretty ridiculous. Apparently, it was some rare Australian frog, nobody knows how it ended up there, but it was definitely dramatic. Secondly, it’s probably when someone accidentally spent £12,000 on a bralette. And lastly, definitely, the one where someone tried to sell a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses with coloured-in lenses using a sharpie!
How many DM’s do you get every day, and how do you keep up with them?
It always fluctuates depending on if a post goes viral, etc. I’d say there are between 100 - 200 a day now, but it does take a while to sift through them. Normally, if I'm on a train or in a situation where I need to kill time, that will be when I go through them!
Favorite Instagram account?
There are so, so many, but I love @meta_visions. It's exactly my kind of humour!
Will you ever reveal your identity? How do you stay anonymous?
I quite like the idea of creating a bit of a mystique behind the project to keep my audience intrigued. I have been tempted to reveal my identity, but with a platform so large, you never know what might happen, especially with trolls, etc., so I think for now I'd like to remain anonymous. You never know, potentially in the future, I may show my face.
What’s the coolest thing to have come from the creation of the account? What’s the strangest thing?
The coolest thing is creating this whole community which makes people laugh, a lot of people message and say sometimes they'll spend their Friday night with their mates just scrolling through the page crying with laughter — and that makes me super happy! The strangest thing is [how I feel about] social media in general and the way it works after spending a lot of time on it. I can't quite describe it, but it's just a very weird place behind the scenes!
Any advice for our readers who want to manage and grow a viral social media account?
Consistency is the big one! 9/10 times you're not going to create something that will blow up overnight. Depop Drama only started taking off a couple of years after creating it, but I was posting almost daily. Another thing is definitely finding a specific niche, it's very difficult to create an account that is quite general. Lastly, you have to be 100% passionate about it, don't create something that you're not really into/doesn't make you laugh/don't care about.
Why tf do people think they can get away with shit on Depop? Can they?
One thing I’ve learned from seeing all of these submissions is that they’re literally no boundaries — people are ruthless and don’t care. People make these hilarious excuses because people are tied to their personal items so much that they don’t want to let them go for cheap and get annoyed when people try to haggle. And people really take the piss on the app because people tend to be quite unreasonable when it comes to asking for a cheap price, and the buyer gets offended. We’re all behind a screen, and we know that we’re never going to meet the person on the other end of the messages, so it’s almost like anything goes!
What’s coming up next for you?
I have some big plans. I can't really reveal too much but you'll be seeing more of DD very soon!
You can keep up with Depop Drama on Instagram at @depopdrama. And as one of her captions says, have a lovely day xx.