Much of the beginning of college is about living in the moment, right? It’s a time to embrace the awkwardness of sitting with semi-strangers at meals, or of practically sitting on the laps of complete strangers on an overcrowded bus. You are surrounded by new people and a new environment, and all you can do is take each moment as it comes. Then, record that moment through one of your favorite social media outlets.
Here’s a look at the typical Duke girl’s start of school through social media.
Facebook is one platform that is diverse enough to capture almost the entire Duke experience. A classy Duke girl makes sure that she is tagged in photos that show her friends at home that she’s living it up at college, but not tagged in photos that will give Aunt Judy a heart attack. Facebook also becomes her new advertising platform, where she can spread the word about events of all 30 clubs she joined during the activities fair, or secure votes as she tries to keep up her resume of leadership positions that she (and everyone else on campus) had in high school.
Our Duke girl’s Instagram starts to flood with Valencia-filtered photos of her superior college experience. She proves she has the most beautiful campus with an artsy photo looking up at the chapel (peeping cranes: optional). A panoramic snapshot of her cute dorm room proves that beauty is on the inside, too. She also has the best roommate ever, as shown by the photo of her and her roommate headed to their first frat party, captioned “roomie love.”
When the Duke girl and her roommate get to their first frat party, Snapchat takes over as the social media of choice. With the flash on so everyone knows she’s taking a group selfie, the girl adds this photo to her Snapstory so that all of her friends can see what a freaking awesome time she’s having. Later, she will add a video of her and her friends dancing and belting to “Problem” because, oh my gosh, it’s their song!!
When our girl wakes up the next morning, she starts to open up Twitter to subtweet that guy from last night, but she realizes that a) no one really uses Twitter anymore, and b) she can just yak about him anonymously. On Yik Yak, she is free to release any pent up thoughts that could not be expressed in other forms of social media. She can yak about that frat she knows nothing about, or how the C3 might be a myth, or how EMS has had their work cut out for them, and be rewarded with a climbing yakarma that is a great self-esteem boost.
With our Duke girl’s ego full of likes, favorites, and ups, she is ready to have face-to-face conversations, embrace college, and live in the moment. But first, let her take a selfie.