On Mar. 1, Lexington High School’s Chamber Orchestra has officially become the most followed account on Instagram. Having created their account in 2021, the orchestra didn’t find fame until they branched out and began posting short form content which has led them to rapid exponential growth. 

Initially, when the account first started posting, many doubted that they would achieve success with their approach of posting comedy. Arthur “Art” Istich, a prodigal violinist with the orchestra, was one of many doubting that the account could achieve mainstream success on social media.

“I didn’t think they had any chance. I mean, no one did. After all, who’s out on the internet looking to be entertained? People want seriousness, not jokes,” Art said.

Soon after they started posting, though, they experienced growth far beyond what the doubters thought possible. Just weeks after their first video, the account soon rose to just over ten million followers. The orchestra thought that would be the end of it, but the growth did not cease. 

“We had no idea that this was coming,” Viola H. Atter, a cello-ist said. “I thought to myself that we had just found our niche, just a couple people that were looking for orchestra memes on the internet. Clearly, I was wrong, considering what happened next.”

Soon after they reached this milestone, they achieved never-before-seen levels of growth. They quickly jumped by hundreds of millions until they reached around 650 million. At this point, they were around the level of the former most followed account: Cristiano Ronaldo. Soon, rumors of a rivalry were arising. Theo Rist, a never-touches-grass bassist in the orchestra, was surprised by the first interaction with the star.

“One day, we walked into class and noticed a private jet in the quad. When class began, a man we hadn’t seen before went to the podium. Because I live under a rock, it took me a second before I realized it was Ronaldo. He told us that he was impressed, but that there was no way kids would beat him out on this,” Rist said.

Despite what was shaping up to be a generational feud, on the levels of Kendrick versus Drake, the Yankees versus the Red Sox, or Coke versus Pepsi, the drama soon came to a close. The next week, the orchestra broke another milestone, reaching into the billions of followers.

Today, because of their social media prominence, the orchestra has many promising opportunities ahead of them. Mai Stro, an enterprising new member of the group, elaborated on what the group has come up with.

“I took charge of caring for the group’s brand deals. Just last week, I looked at offers from Grammarly, TE Tuner, and Raid Shadow Legends. With that sponsorship money, we can finally get ten extra square feet in the new building,” Stro said

In addition to these sponsorships, the orchestra has also made a few other pursuits. When their account reached ten billion followers, they worked with NASA to find the source of these, and have now set a string quartet out to Mars to make first contact with suspected aliens, who also follow the account. They also are working to bring back famed instrument artisan Antonio Stradivari from the dead to create instruments for the musicians. 

“I am probably going to resell the Stradivari. I can finally be rich,” Atter said.