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February 17, 2021 - Image 10

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
10 — Wednesday, February 17, 2021
statement

I

n early April, I screenshotted
a picture I saw on Wikipedia
of a cow lying on the ground

captioned “a sleeping cow laying on her
side is not immobilized; she can rise
whenever she chooses.” It epitomized
early-quarantine lethargy, and I thought
it was really funny. I kept collecting ob-
scure and amusing Wikipedia excerpts
and posting screenshots of them to an
Instagram page I titled @depthsofwiki-
pedia. Nine months later, my once-friv-
olous hobby has changed my life: The
account has over 120,000 followers, a
merch line and an ongoing collabora-
tion with Wikipedia to fundraise and re-
cruit editors. Since August, I’ve devoted
almost all of my free time to the project.

The account exposes the most curi-

ous corners of Wikipedia, such as a page
on the “sweater curse,” a documented
suspicion that hand-knitting a sweater
for a lover will lead them to break up
with the knitter. Another is the page
“Umarell” which describes elderly men
in Bologna, Italy who watch construc-
tion sites, often with hands clasped be-
hind their backs and offering unwanted
advice. Other good ones are “List of An-
imals with Fraudulent Diplomas” and
“Lawsuits against God.” The posts are
short enough to be shareable but sub-
stantial enough to teach you something,
and the following has grown organically
through Instagram story posts.

I’m not the only University of Michi-

gan student who has recently encoun-
tered the dizzying exhilaration of accu-
mulating more followers than could fit
in the Big House. Between classes and
clubs, some U-M undergrads are pour-
ing their time into maintaining large
internet followings in various corners
of the web, building communities far
larger than the glowing rectangle of an
iPhone. I called some of them to chat about
navigating midterms, merch deals and spin-
ning ephemeral internet clout into a bona fide
platform.

Lucy Carpenter is a senior in LSA studying

communication and media who started post-
ing on her TikTok @carpenlu while studying
abroad in Australia in January 2020. After her
return to Michigan for the March shutdown,
she pivoted to posting colorful montages that
unveil the process of photography, amassing
105,000 followers. Over a Zoom call, she told
me that between classes, a marketing intern-
ship and social media, different pursuits take
priority at different times.

“Sometimes when I’m studying and I get a

really cool idea for a TikTok, I’ll choose to fol-
low it even if I know I should be getting ahead
on an assignment,” Carpenter said. “In a lot of
ways, TikTok is more fun than school.”

Other times, social media gets sent to the

back burner. In the middle of a busy summer
internship, she made fewer posts and her fol-
lower growth slowed markedly. “I was okay
with it because I loved my internship,” Carpen-
ter explained.

For Carpenter, whose professional interests

of photography and social media align closely
with her online niche, both her degree and Tik-
Tok are vehicles to the same post-graduation
goals. Though she’s seen creators with simi-
lar backgrounds find successful careers after
dropping out, she’s set on finishing her degree
both to build business skills and because, as a
senior, she’s so close to finishing. After gradu-
ating, she’s not sure where she’ll end up but
hopes to continue creative pursuits.

“Because of Tiktok, it feels more possible to

pursue photography full time,” Carpenter said.
“I now have a network of people all over the
world.”

Carpenter isn’t the only student using Tik-

Tok to build a professional network. Nick Daly is
an Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore study-
ing musical theatre whose TikTok account @
nick_t_daly, which approaches 175,000 follow-

ers, has grown steadily since Spring 2020. In a
Zoom call from his rented Kerrytown room, he
told me about the account’s start.

“I got really sad at the beginning of quaran-

tine. Maybe that was the key,” Daly said. “There
were no opportunities over the summer, so as a
Musical Theatre major I didn’t know what to
do, and I was inspired by the spirit of the quote
‘If you don’t have work, make work.’”

And that’s exactly what he did. Over the

summer, Daly posted several videos per day
highlighting his stunning vocals and accumu-
lating a steady stream of followers. Despite his
success, he’s found that he now can’t keep up
with posting at that pace due to piling obliga-
tions.

“(I’m) super busy working on a play for

Playfest, sending in auditions for TV and mov-
ies and putting in 20 hours a week at Chipotle,”
he said. It took a few seconds for him to add,
“And I’m still a musical theatre major.”

After winning the prestigious Playbill’s

Search for a Star award in the fall, he spent the
first few weeks of the school year engulfed in
tasks related to the prize. School took a back
seat at the start of the semester, and Daly felt
like he never really caught up.

“I’ve always been of the mind that educa-

tion is more important than a degree. I’d rather
be skilled than have a piece of paper hanging
on my wall that says I’m skilled,” he said. “If I
graduate, it would be cool, but I ultimately just
want to work in theatre and it doesn’t matter
whether it’s school or social media that gets me
there.”

His agent, who found him through Insta-

gram, messaged him while we were talking to
ask for another TV show audition to send in.

Daly doesn’t know what exactly is next for

him, but he’s grateful to have a platform to com-
municate his passions, such as the importance
of using art for social change. He’s also excited
by how much TikTok has expanded his profes-
sional opportunities in the performing arts.

Social media can advance the business side

of music endeavors as well. Ari Elkins is a ju-

nior in LSA studying political science and mi-
noring in performing arts management who
posts TikToks of niche playlists (think “POV: its
BID Day 2021 and you just accepted your bid
to your favorite sorority” and “Songs that will
make you want to go on an adventure”) char-
acterized by impossibly enthusiastic dances,
bouncy hair and a blithe California coolness.
W

hen his summer 2020 intern-
ship with Warner Music got
canceled, he spent more time

posting videos, such as one titled “Songs that
will take you back to your favorite frat base-
ment,” which catapulted him into prominence
and entrenched his current niche as a Genera-
tion-Z music curator. 600,000 TikTok follow-
ers later, he has a team of managers, growing
Youtube and Spotify platforms and a slew of
brand sponsorship deals.

He’s taking a full course load at the Uni-

versity, but he estimates a time breakdown of
70% music and Tiktok work compared to 30%
school. He told me more about balancing mu-
sic and TikTok with school on a Zoom call.

“I would only drop out of school if it were

prohibiting my success and, right now, I’m able
to balance school and TikTok,” Elkins said.
“College is important in that it makes you a
more well-rounded citizen, but if I really think
about it, I don’t think that a college diploma
will be directly useful for my current career
trajectory.”

This summer, he’s not doing an organized

internship but instead focusing on personal
music and TikTok pursuits.

While Elkins has always been interested in

the music industry, social media success has
given him resounding encouragement to fur-
ther pursue a career as a music personality. Be-
ing a front-facing figure in the same category as
Zane Lowe or Ryan Seacrest is within reach for
Elkins all because of TikTok.

However, not all students are using their

kernels of fame to directly advance their ca-
reers. Ryan Tippy, an LSA freshman who plans
to major in public health on a pre-med track,

struck algorithm gold on a video he
posted on his TikTok @ryant6969 two
days after his SATs about looking like
the Riverdale character Kevin Keller.
After the post went viral, he continued
posting witty TikToks in his free time,
accruing 65,000 followers. Unlike other
student creators, he’s never considered
pursuing TikTok as more than a hobby.

“I’m very school-driven,” he said.

“Being a full-on influencer is not my
personality. I’m just doing this because
it makes me laugh.”

A number of other students boast

mind-bogglingly large account stats, and
many come from vastly different cor-
ners of the internet. Business freshman
Simon Kim has built a TikTok commu-
nity of 1.2 million followers on @whole-
somesimon, where he promotes mental
health efforts with colorful graphics and
clear-eyed sincerity. On the anime and
manga side of TikTok, Rackham student
Jeffery Zhang boasts 900,000 followers.
Front-camera clips of comedic musings
brought LSA senior Demetrius Fields to
1.7 million TikTok followers, and varsity
basketball player and LSA junior Adrien
Nunez has amassed nearly a million fol-
lowers on TikTok making couple videos
with his girlfriend Carson Roney, who
plays basketball for Shawnee State Uni-
versity.

University of Michigan student cre-

ators are part of a broader cultural rise
of relatable online creators, a grand
convergence between restless, quaran-
tined young people and hungry algo-
rithms engineered to manufacture the
illusion of fame. Subject to the opaque
mechanisms of algorithm-based con-
tent viewing, the beginning of a popular
page often comes down to luck. It’s that
tantalizing first taste of virality that can
bring about a pivotal, if subtle, decision:

to keep pursuing internet fame or not.
The creators I spoke to decided to run with

it, albeit with varying levels of commitment
— some treating online creation like a step-
ping stone to their career and others using it
to pass the time. However, to varying degrees,
their college experiences are fundamentally
altered: paid posts informing their schedules,
ring lights in dorm rooms, private Zoom chats
in class asking “Are you from TikTok?” and an
inescapable sense that if they don’t keep up an
endless stream of content, their fleeting home-
grown fame will dissolve just as quickly as it
appeared.

Each student creator echoed familiar sen-

timents of gratitude for their platforms. We
agreed that working on social media feels, for
the most part, like an exciting antidote to mo-
notonous online classes.

Personally, it’s running @depthsofwiki-

pedia the best part of my year, offering bright
moments of novelty amidst the monotony of
quarantine. Amidst Canvas notifications and
club emails are notifications of follows from
celebrity crushes (like John Mayer) and inter-
esting messages from strangers. I’ve also gotten
more involved with the workings of Wikipedia,
learning to edit and organizing an edit-a-thon
in January.

One of my greatest takeaways from online

classes is how much agency I have over what
I learn. Digital learning has, in many ways,
challenged traditional models of learning in
which a teacher presents information in front
of a class. When I’m learning class material
online, I’ve found myself more likely to seek
out independent education resources, opting
for Youtube explainers over clogged Zoom
office hours and skipping asynchronous lec-
ture videos to make notes from a textbook.
Viewing classes as education guides, not nec-
essarily essential manuals, empowers me to
broaden the activities considered to be educa-
tional. Through this lens, some of the lessons
I’m learning from social media feel just as vital
as those from schoolwork.

Midterms and merch lines: U-M
influencers speak on balancing
school and social media

BY ANNIE RAUWERDA, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE

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