Twelve-year-old Benjamin Lasnier has more than 762,000 followers on Instagram. Now he wants to start a music career – and crack America
Last Easter, a 12-year-old Dane named Benjamin Lasnier was sitting in a restaurant when his cousin convinced him to join Instagram. He followed 10 friends and posted a self-portrait. Half an hour later, it had more than 50 “likes”.
Lasnier, a confident kid who some say resembles his idol Justin Bieber, sensed he had a certain currency on the site. He continued to post pictures – more than 2,100 so far, almost exclusively “selfies” – and people continued to like them.
With more than 762,000 followers, the now 13-year-old from Copenhagen is one of the world’s most “Instagram famous” people, with a follower count dwarfing those of many celebrities (Jessie J, for example, has 367,000). To hardcore fans – who identify as “Benzilers”, a clunky adaptation of Justin’s “Beliebers” – he has the stature of an idol. “You are so beautiful! Not just on the outside, but the inside!” reads one 11-year-old’s comment.
Lasnier has hustled to turn the attention into something tangible. He began posting 12 pictures a day, at optimal times for different time zones. Each attracts 60,000-odd “likes”, propelling it on to Instagram’s “popular” page, where it is visible to the site’s 100 million users.
Through images alone, he has fine-tuned a brand that is catnip to tweens: non-threatening, motivational and completely unattainable (he follows fewer than 1,000 people). The formula works so well that 42,000 people follow an account for his dog. Brands shower him with products in the hope he will be photographed with them.
Lasnier’s mother, Merete, became aware something was happening in October, when he started being mobbed by girls in public. She supports his ambition, despite the abusive comments, which, she says, he is wise enough to ignore. And, unlike the sexualised “selfies” of some of his young followers, his photos are uniformly chaste.
Despite a musical background limited to YouTube lip-synchs, Lasnier – who made himself an idol without pretending to any talent at all – is now signed to Sony, working with top producers to crack America. But is there more to him than just a pretty face?
“Every talent starts from scratch,” says Sony A&R Mads Kjaergaard. If Lasnier can credibly establish himself and leverage his fanbase “there is no limit to where he could go”.
But it will require losing the “Instagram boy” moniker, and to that end, Lasnier is already attempting a rebrand, limiting the selfies to four a day.
“People say: ‘He takes too many pictures of himself, he (must have a) big ego,’ and it’s not what I want,” he says. “I’m ready to go another way.”
