Q&A: @GrahamTime, Your New Favorite IG Account
For GenZllineals, social media is much more than something to look at when you’re bored—it’s a vocation. Many of the most popular users on Instagram started from the ground up to make their handle a free-standing content industry; take the House of Highlights guy, for one. If you can find a subject matter that resonate with a wide audience, and create posts that drum up a little good ol’ fashioned engagement consistently, there’s an opportunity to make a name for yourself.
Enter @GrahamTime.
As someone that has become obsessed with the rapid ascendance of Devonté Graham, I came across @GrahamTime in my usual social media rummaging—I think a different KU fanpage shared one of their stories. Immediately, I was in. Pro athletes don’t have enough time to create as much content as their fans want, and to fill that void, fanpages have become a big part of following basketball online. While Devonté Graham probably is far from the first NBA player you’d want to set up a fanpage for—if the goal is max reach or popularity—an enterprising individual could certainly find a relatively unexplored lane.
That person is Harrison, a University of Maryland freshman from New Jersey. Intrigued by the account, and the big swings it was taking (see below), I could tell this fellow had a nose for a provocative post.
Posts like this one—and one comparing DG4 to Luka Doncic—below might feel forced in other contexts, but Harrison knows how to slice a stat, hooking popular players and basketball topics into Devonté’s orbit.
A few weeks back, I reached out via DM to scope out what his deal was.
Streak Talk: What inspired you to start a Devonté Graham fanpage?
Harrison: I was inspired to start this page by the fact that Devonté is a great up and coming player in the league and I feel like having the opportunity to monitor and encourage a great young player would be a really fun opportunity. And if he develops into a great player like I think he will being able to look back on this journey and continuing to support him would be a lot of fun.
This post had serious juice for me. It’s a bold comparison—McCollum is on a 5 yrs/$157M deal right now—but in the end a perfectly fair one. Walk me through making it and what you were hoping to represent.
This post was inspired by all of the MIP talks for Devonte and comparing him to other great players who won MIP in recent years was interesting for me to see. I felt that arranging it this way gives the viewers a simple layout with complex information to allow to analyze the similarities and differences between their stats to come to their own conclusions and let us know what they thought.
Do you look at other fan pages or official pages for inspiration? If so, which ones?
I’ll be honest, I haven’t really looked at other fan pages as much as you would think. I like to build my own unique content and see where it takes me without really letting other accounts influence how I make posts and share them. I have some collab posts with some other fan pages though which allows me to see the perspectives of other account owners which I think is valuable.
Did you follow Devonté at Kansas? If so, were you a fan or did it take the NBA success to get there?
Before I committed to go to UMD, I was a big Kansas basketball fan and therefore got to watch Devonté play a lot in his college years. Seeing him come this far and turn into a great young player has been pretty cool honestly. I always liked his play style and was surprised in a great way about how sudden his emergence was.
Since starting the page, have you gotten any unexpected attention?
I have done collabs with some pretty large accounts which has been pretty fun for me. I’m actually looking to start a project to get Devonté to notice the account so hopefully that’s a start to getting some attention from big names.