Humza Deas is a 17-year-old kid with something far more dangerous than a new driver’s license. Deas has an Instagram feed–and the thrill he gets from showing himself being adept at dangerous activities is addictive. Addictive for both Deas and for the 40,000 people who follow the young daredevil’s bridge-climbing, building-scaling exploits. Also addictive are his often beautiful visual reports from these lofty places in New York City that regular people never get to see.
Writer Adrian Chen just profiled Deas as part of what Chen calls “The Outlaw Instagrammers of New York City.” Deas and people like him are sort of next-gen graffiti taggers in a cleaner, more high tech New York. Their mark on the buildings and bridges they scale is not as evident as what Jean-Michel Basquiat used to leave there in the 80s–or Neck Face today–but their presence is eerily felt by those who know they’re out there. Deas’s Instagram shows he’s all over the place even though you can’t see him. In real life if Neck Face is Twitter, Deas is Snapchat. You just hope he doesn’t, one night when his feet are less sure, really disappear.
