…well, on social media at least. Welcome to the surprisingly entertaining online world of DJs posting gems from their record collections and chatting about dance music’s vibrant history. Of course, this being 2025, there are those who think they know better. But we’ll try to ignore them. Harold Heath investigates the latest (generally) smiley phenomenon… 

‍

You’ve no doubt seen Fish56Octagon’s videos on your social media feed at some point: mid-40s bloke, dressing gown, Technics decks, occasional ill-advised use of the word ‘bare’ when he means ‘a lot’, and massive enthusiasm for his vinyl collection of dance music. Internet home-DJ extraordinaire Fish56Octagon’s recent rise to fame led to a Glastonbury DJ gig and a Guardian interview, meaning he just needs to do a gap year and he’ll have completed three peak-middle-class ‘G’s in record time.

Whether he’s your cup of tea or not, Fish Man’s videos (we tried to find out his actual name but Google just tells you Fish56Octagon isn’t his real name, thanks big tech, you absolute length) have proved super-popular. And although Mr Fish inexplicably declined Disco Pogo’s kind offer to take part in this feature – we’re not angry, just disappointed – there are plenty of other DJs and record collectors raving about their record collections via social media videos who were happy to talk to us.

The world of social media vinyl vids is generally good-natured, where the ‘fire’ emoji is king and every selection is a banger, but there are hazards too. Legends speak of a forgotten cave in old Albion where a troupe of fearless Balearic DJs sleep an eternal dreamless sleep, only rising from their slumbers if a Mandy Smith 12-inch is in need. 

And lo, as Sheffield’s multi-instrumentalist Yarni , who started posting videos of his record collection to, in his own words “spread the love and spark meaningful conversations”, found out, a swift online retribution awaits anyone who ever-so-slightly misrepresents the sacred Balearic/Shoom legend. “When I posted about the original version of Mandy Smith’s ‘I Just Can’t Wait’ being Balearic,” he told us, “I was swiftly schooled by a group of veteran Balearic enthusiasts, who called me out for my ignorance!” 

Avoiding perils such as these is just one of the challenges for DJs who are brave enough to enter this realm. We spoke with Dave Seaman, Nina Kehagia, Dave Lee and Billy ‘Daniel’ Bunter to get the details about dance music’s latest online trend…

Dave Seaman

DJ, producer, label boss, former Mixmag editor and Brother In Rhythm Dave Seaman posts vids directly from his record room, showcasing old and new jams, telling the stories behind the tunes, and inventing new sub-genres (‘bass-face-inducer-house anyone?), all with a frankly cavalier approach to vinyl handling. “It’s amazing how irate some people can get about how you handle your vinyl,” he admits, “but I’ve had some people get really quite abusive, saying: ‘He knows fuck all about vinyl, look at the way he’s holding that record!’ I just think if you’d seen what my records went through in the 90s you’d be spontaneously combusting!” 

Overly-online-vinyl-nerds aside, Seaman’s vids have proved very popular and we wondered why he started making them. But he hadn’t quite finished with the nerds: “And, by the way”, he continues, “it’s MY vinyl, I’m not touching YOUR vinyl!” Anyway, like many vinyl collectors, the arrival of digital meant a mid-2000s halt to his record buying. He put his collection into storage until the lack of gigs and general boredom of pandemic lockdowns. “As I unboxed them one by one,” he reflects, “it was a very pleasurable experience on many levels (should’ve live-streamed that, Dave) and I really re-connected with that tangible experience that vinyl gives you.”

The physicality of vinyl definitely works better visually than digital music. Seaman standing in front of his laptop searching for a particularly choice WAV then clicking play in Rekordbox just isn’t as cool as him selecting a tune from his wall of vinyl and smearing his greasy fingers all over it. “It’s a real thing that you can actually see and touch,” he says, “and the younger generation are kind of obsessed with the 90s, what they missed out on and there’s a real movement of them wanting to understand what was going on during that 80s/90s golden age – and vinyl is a part of that.” 

It’s what’s on the vinyl that’s important of course, and for Dave the reason he posts videos of music he loves is the same reason he DJs: “It’s connection,” he concludes. “Music is one of the best, if not the best thing for making that connection between people. That’s the whole essence of DJing and it’s why these videos are so popular – because it’s instantly relatable.”

Nina Kehagia 

Music curator, creative strategist, educator/researcher, DJ and Resonance FM broadcaster Nina Kehagia has been creating videos cataloguing and celebrating music and vinyl culture for a few years. “Basically, my aim was always to share knowledge, to educate and entertain,” she states. “I’ve always had a passion for sharing culture and music in some way or another.” It’s a passion she currently indulges with regular vinyl selection videos from her several-rooms-strong record collection, often with accompanying nuggets of info or commentary, while her YouTube channel features lengthier, info-rich deep dives on subjects like the origins of the concept of genre, or how experimental composers and film scores helped electronic music become mainstream.

Like the rest of us she’s also seen the rise of DJs playing their record collections on social media. “I don’t really know the Octagon person,” she told us (we’ve only referred to him as The Octagon Person since). “It’s a different way to share your music knowledge. It might not be accurate a lot of the time, but people like it. I’m not one of those people who say: ‘This isn’t right’, or ‘You should hold your records like this’, so I appreciate the people who share the knowledge although they’re not experts and it’s nice to see younger people getting inspired by the older generation.”

She may not be one of the people who complain about others’ record-holding technique, but like Seaman, Kehagia has also encountered several people (men, it’s always men) online who get really angry about it. Or perhaps it’s the same dude who was angry at Dave Seaman; maybe he’s devoted his days to criticising DJs online, like a modern-day Sisyphus destined to never complete the task of annoying every DJ alive. “He kept saying to me: ‘Why are you holding the records like this?’”, she laughs, doing a superb impression of a professional incel losing their shit in the comments section. “‘You’re not supposed to be holding the records like that! LOOK AT HER FINGERS!’” 

She once posted Octave One’s ‘Black Water’, describing it as Detroit techno, triggering a fierce online reaction from the “IT’S DETROIT HOUSE ACTUALLY” reply-guys, which quickly escalated into a major international incident with the two sides mobilising supplies, ordnance and smartass observations about 909 drum sounds, before hostilities were narrowly avoided at the last moment with an Ashley Beedle-brokered peace deal. 

Dave Lee

While a love of sharing music is the main driver for our contributors, part of the rise in short DJ music curation videos is down to the expectation for them to produce content. “All us DJs feel a pressure to have an active social media presence,” UK ultimate disco champ Dave Lee explains. “So many potential bookers will first check your social media channels, see how many followers you have and the amount of interaction you get as a barometer of your popularity. Constantly finding content to post several times a week isn’t easy.” 

Luckily, while not all DJs playing their records and talking about them on Instagram or TikTok have good records or actually know what they’re talking about, clearly this isn’t the case for the man also formerly known as Joey Negro, Raven Maize and Jakatta. His social media videos feature choice music selections from his vast collection played on a tasty four-deck set-up, often with some nice little accompanying background commentary and tales.

Recently he played Roy Ayers’ classic ‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine’ LP and simply chatted about the tracks, the knowledge and affection he’s built up over a lifetime for this music as crystal clear as the production on the album. “I don’t want my social media to only be about my gigs and new releases,” he says. “One thing I feel I can authoritatively talk about is music and particularly my record collection. I was a fanatical vinyl collector for 30 years. Telling stories about a release, label or artist, when and where you bought/heard the song in question, some background info about the artist is always a nice nostalgia trip which other people are seemingly interested in hearing.” 

As with all our DJs, the vast majority of feedback Lee receives is from people enjoying the music (surely outside the firefighting community, dance music leads the world in the use of the ‘fire’ emoji), but he’s also experienced the full force of the tiny but loud minority of angry internet people, ironically often when making jokes. “My videos tend to be a bit tongue in cheek with a British sense of humour, meaning some people don’t get it – especially outside the UK. I made a video complaining about DJs dancing too much. It was half a joke as obviously the DJ dancing and being into the music is a good thing, but I was poking fun at the way some people overdo the body movements when they play, especially in the social media age. However, there were a lot of responses who took me completely literally and were quite annoyed.” 

So, for any DJs considering posting vids about your music collection, add ‘Don’t talk about DJs dancing’ to the list of DJ Online Curation Best Practices, right after ‘Don’t ever touch your records’ and ‘Never show your fingers onscreen’.

Billy ‘Daniel’ Bunter 

Trevor Jackson waxing lyrical about the (nominally) hardcore DJ Billy Bunter at the end of last year was not something that was on our acid house 2024 bingo card, it must be said. But when Jackson exclaimed that Bunter’s video vignettes were the “ONLY reason to be on social media right now”, he was, of course, correct.

Billy ‘Daniel’ Bunter began his 35-plus years DJ career as a fresh-faced 15-year-old at one of the UK’s most cutting-edge clubs at its very peak – London’s Club Labyrinth – and as his videos joyously celebrating his record collection demonstrate, he’s still overflowing with enthusiasm for his beloved tunes. “For me, as a vinyl geek, I’m absolutely fascinated with the history,” Bunter enthuses. “I don’t want people or pieces of history to be left out – this is a history that’s far more fascinating than Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold telling you in Mixmag in 1988 that if it wasn’t for Ibiza and Balearic Beat, then acid house wouldn’t have been as big as it is… I want to share the things that are not the biblical myths, things that just interest me.” 

These things include his recent Bristol 1988 vid on Massive Attack and Smith & Mighty, 11 minutes of head-nodding audio delight punctuated with Bunter-chat. The selections are strong, his patter’s on the money, but really, it’s that boundless enthusiasm and passion for the music that make it all so appealing.

His 12 million video views a month mostly receive positive feedback but like Kehagia, he’s also learned how to do a decent impression of an incensed online comment guy. “I get all that ‘We hate this, we’re sick of him, how dare he!’” he says, “and some people think I’m providing a service that should be exactly how they want it: ‘Don’t talk over the records, only play records from the six months I went raving in 1993 and if you don’t I WILL let you know my discontent!’” 

Then there was the time that his What Really Was The First Jungle Hardcore Record video, via some misplaced hashtagging from King Britt and general online crossfire, ended up with a comment from Shut Up And Dance asking Bunter if he knew their music. “I said: ‘You DJ for me, you’ve been on my radio shows, I’m constantly PAing and DJing with the Ragga Twins, you used to bring your records round to Paul For Music record shop in the early 90s’…” At this point, he performs a small but perfectly executed rhetorical pause before continuing: “Of course I fucking know you!”

So, does Bunter think there’s a serious side to his social media dance music historian schtick? Is it important to catalogue and celebrate our music and culture this way? Surprisingly for someone so outspoken, he was somewhat on the fence for this one, giving us an unusually low-key, restrained and noncommittal answer: “One million, million, million per cent” he beams. “Especially when more and more of our friends are passing away. One. Million. Per cent.” 

Amen (break) to that. 

‍

This article first appeared in issue seven of Disco Pogo.