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

