Skip to main content

Prince joins Instagram, instantly proves he’s got a sense of humor

michael jackson enjoyed princes failures prince
Northfoto / Shutterstock.com
Brace yourselves, world, Instagram just got it’s best-named celebrity account yet from Prince himself: Say hello to Princetagram.

The 57-year-old pop sensation finally joined the online image sharing app over the weekend, picking the name as the subtitle for his account, which uses the simple @prince follow tag. Then he (or his team) started posting photos. The account has added almost a hundred of them in three days.

Most of his material was clipped from already-shot press and record images, but the musician did have a couple quirky posts that make a scroll through the account worth it. Among them is this photo from Dave Chappelle’s infamous sketch based on a supposedly real encounter at Prince’s house by Charlie Murphy, with the added caption “This bores me.”

https://instagram.com/p/9J2o6QGLVY/?taken-by=prince

Other Princetagram highlights include a vertical video of his computer wallpaper — for which he, of course, uses a photo of himself — and many, many, blue-steel-esq head shots.

CLOSE UP

A photo posted by PRINCESTAGRAM (@prince) on

As of this morning, the purple one had added 88 photos and racked up almost 60 thousand followers on the service. That’s a pretty quick uptick for a man who has a well-documented love/hate relationship with the Internet and the people who use it.

In 2010 the singer/songwriter famously declared that the Internet was “completely over,” and has made a habit of suing anyone who puts his music up online in any form. Last year Prince also deleted both his Twitter and Facebook accounts — but not before hosting a Facebook Q&A in which he only answered a single question in over three hours.

Then again, even pop superstars are allowed to change their mind about the Internet, and Princetagram may be just the latest evidence of that; Prince recently released his latest album HITNRUN Phase One exclusively on Jay-Z’s streaming service Tidal, and he has nearly 100 thousand followers on a now-reestablished Twitter account (@Prince3EG).

We’re still waiting on some Purple Rain-themed cat memes, but this is a pretty good start.

Editors' Recommendations

Parker Hall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…
What is hi-res audio, and how can you experience it right now?
Dlyan Wireless Headphones

High-resolution audio, hi-res audio, or even HD audio -- whatever you decide to call it (for the record, the industry prefers "hi-res audio"), it's a catch-all term that describes digital audio that goes above and beyond the level of sound quality you can expect from a garden-variety MP3 file and even CDs. It was once strictly the domain of audiophiles, but now that major streaming music services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz have embraced it, almost everyone can take advantage of what hi-res has to offer.

But what exactly is hi-res audio? What equipment do you need to listen to it? Where can you download or stream it? And does it actually sound better? We've got the answers.
What does the term 'hi-res audio' mean?

Read more
How to download music from Spotify for offline listening
How to download music and podcasts from Spotify: The downloads folder.

If you're a Spotify Premium user paying that premium Spotify fee, chances are you've taken at least some time curating playlists, liking songs, and using the platform's easy-to-use (and recently revamped) user interface to discover new and old music.

But sometimes all that music or your favorite podcasts aren't available if you find yourself without an internet connection to stream them from — like on a long plane ride or weekend camping trip in the sticks. That's where Spotify's offline listening feature comes in handy, allowing you to download playlists, albums, and podcasts through its desktop and mobile apps so you can still rock out while you're off the grid.

Read more
How to switch from Spotify to Apple Music
Spotify and Apple Music transfer on a smartphone.

Spotify is the world's most popular music streaming service for a reason. It has a massive catalog of music and podcasts, is full of cool music discovery and sharing features, and is really easy to use.
However, with its recent price increase and the fact that it still hasn't joined most of its peers in offering a hi-res audio quality option, you may be considering jumping ship for its closest competitor, Apple Music, which counts lossless hi-res tracks, mind-bending spatial audio, Dolby Atmos Music tracks, and a catalog that rivals Spotify's among the many attractive reasons to switch.

But there's one problem: you’ve spent a lot of time creating playlists and marking songs and albums as your favorites in Spotify. Is it worth the switch? Will all that hard work be lost in translation?

Read more