Meet the guys behind Edinburgh’s original and funniest flat Instagram account

The Bernard Terrace Legends, or BTL for short


In this digital age, young people are always striving for online gratification on either their Facebook, Snapchat, Tinder or Instagram accounts. Normally, we just focus on our own individual accounts, but a group of a six former Baird House residents have created an Instagram account documenting their year living together.

Comprised of five crazy medics and one engineer, they claim to be the original and best flat Instagram account in Edinburgh.

With over 700 followers, they may just have a fair claim to that title.

When did you get the idea?

Dan: We had the idea over the summer.

Euan: I thought it was an impromptu thing that we decided to do.

Lachlan: We did talk about it whilst watching Netflix then I think Dan just made the account.

Dan: We just thought ‘fuck it, we might as well do it, people might enjoy it.’

Did you get the idea from anyone else?

All: No, we hadn’t

Chaz: We like to see ourselves as the original.

Lachlan: Since then we’ve seen two more ones in Edinburgh that have just flopped really, which we’re quite happy with.

Who’s in charge?

Dan: It’s actually quite even.

Lachlan: In terms of contributions to post, it’s pretty even.

How often do you post?

Duncan: Fairly irregularly, like once a week to once every two weeks.

Dan: It’s definitely quality over quantity.

Do you have any favourite posts?

Dan: The one about the Tab Glasgow is probably our favourite. They featured a flat insta account that we think isn’t as funny as ours and we did one of me doing the salt bae thing but with angry emojis on top of something saying ‘The Tab Glasgow’.

Euan: We got 212 likes on that one.

Lachlan: We were just a bit bitter I think.

Chaz: My favourite one was of Calum who got an eyebrow slit and looked a lot like Robbie Williams so we did a side by side comparison of the two. Usually he looks awful, but actually looked pretty good in that one.

How do you get so many followers and so many likes this consistently?

Chaz: I guess quite a few folk in our year follow us and we all know different people from home so that helps.

Euan: It’s been a while since we got less than a hundred likes.

Duncan: Also, if you follow people like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, randomers who follow them for some reason follow you. I think we got quite a few followers through that.

Euan: That’s not how we get likes though. You have to get followers who actually want to follow us.

Chaz: The tags are usually pretty good.

Euan: We don’t really do it for the likes though.

Dan: Yeh, it’s more of a way of life.

Duncan: We definitely care more about the BTL account than our own individual accounts.

Do you get much attention and recognition from this?

Lachlan: Sometimes in a club people come up to us and go “OMG you’re BTL” which is pretty funny.

Chaz: To us we don’t personally know them but they’re probably people one of us knows.

Duncan: I was in Prow a couple of weeks ago and someone did come up to me and say, “Are you in that flat Instagram thing?”, and I was like, “Yep, that’s me.”

Lachlan: On New Year’s Eve I was just walking down the street having lost all my mates and I hear this screech from behind me, “BTL!”. She got her camera torch out right in front of my face shouting at me, “How much do you love BTL”. I was so confused by it and by the end of the conversation she just invited me to her flat party. It was an odd one, we didn’t know anyone there.

Any other funny stories from your BTL account?

Dan: I’ve sold three pairs of old Tiger shoes for £60 three separate times to this random guy who found us on Instagram. He must collect shoes or something because he buys them for more than what I buy them for in the shop. I’ve made a profit every time. He once chased me down Middle Meadow Walk once asking for my shoes. We’re pretty sure he only found me through the Insta account.

Do you try to portray yourselves in a particular way?

Dan: Well, we’ve got our stereotype that come across sometimes. Lachlan’s got a stomach problem which means he chunders blood every time he drinks, Ewan is a gym rat who doesn’t do his legs, Duncan has the worst dress sense and Chaz never gets out of bed.

Duncan: Dan just eats everything and is filthy. We have a 6th flat mate who we just refer to as Milk. Very few people know his real name.