In a new weekly column, we profile the profiles you weren’t lolz enough to come up with as they pick their top five posts and share with us some of their Insta know-how.
When it comes to illustrating the highs and lows of life today, Julie Houts likes to keep things real, which she does, rather hilariously, via her Instagram @jooleeloren. Highly satirical and often political, Julie’s illustrations offer a tongue in cheek portrait of everything from the fashion industry to the many facets of being a women. From contemplating whether to eat chips from the garbage while scraping off the remnants of a facemask to salivating over celebrity Met Ball fashion fails, we’ve all been there.
Born and bred in the Midwest, Julie moved to New York to study fashion design at Parsons, after which she worked in the industry for nearly a decade before finally hanging up her designer shoes to become an full time illustrator. That she found fame through instagram came a bit of a shock.
An OG ‘grammer, Julie has been online from the very beginning. Initially her account was a type of visual diary where she shared drawings and things that inspired her. However she tells i-D, “I think everyone, myself included, began curating their feed more and more aggressively as their followings grew.”
What makes Julie’s account so consumable is that she draws from her own life. “I’m usually trying to point something out about a behavioural trend or pattern I’ve noticed in myself or those around me,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll have read an article or have just recently had a conversation that will spark an idea. I’ll sit down and draw something out and post it. The whole process will be very quick. Other times, I’ll take note of something and sort of sketch into it or around it for days before I get to a place that I think is resolved.”
Fast forward to today and Julie has 226K followers and that highly covetable blue tick. She even landed her very own book deal. Conceived as a collection of darkly comic illustrated essays, Literally Me , chronicles the excruciatingly funny exploits of the modern woman, from the beauty routine of a deranged bride to the true dating confessions of a fembot.
Here Julie picks her top five posts ever below.
Trying to hold it together at job
“I made this one a week or so after the election. It was (and is) a surreal and horrifying time. Everyone had about ten tabs of news open on their computers, just pressing “refresh” over and over again. Meanwhile, I was at my job pretending like I wasn’t having a constant anxiety attack.”
Feminist
“I mean???”
How I start My Day
“Every. day.”
LOL IM SCREAMING
“I made this after reading comments I’d get on my posts. “I’m dead in my coffin, I’m a pile of ashes, I’m so dead.” “I’m screaming and crying in public and I’ve vomited from the strength of my feelings” I’m barely exaggerating.”
Using Feminism as a Tool
‘I notice this more and more…”