Note: The names of all account administrators featured in this story are pseudonyms. The Daily News respects these individuals’ desire for anonymity.
Last year it was Ball State memes. This year it’s Ball State Secret Admirers. Ball State students have a passion for these Internet-based cultural blips that beat truer and longer than other campus interests.
Ball State students also have a pronounced and persistent appreciation for the peer-run social media accounts that relate to campus culture. Drinking Redefined (@JoAnnWhora) has accumulated 5,122 followers, just 32 less than the number of students who attended the 2012 football season-opener and doubling the 2,680 students that attended Senior Night against Ohio.
When Serenity Poe began Party Updates (@BSUpartyupdate), she had something besides drinking on her mind. Poe wanted to help students with limited social connections meet each other and have fun.
“It just kind of stemmed from representing the plain Joe’s and Jane’s of college that didn’t have access to parties but have every right to access to those parties,” Poe said.
Freshman speech pathology major Katie Simmons has used Party Updates several times when coordinating her weekend activities.
“Usually parties publicized on Twitter are a lot bigger,” Simmons said.
Simmons said these parties often boasted an unusually mixed bag of people. When presented with this observation Poe said she is happy the feed is accomplishing her goal of bringing people together who wouldn’t otherwise meet each other.
“What I’m doing is working,” Poe said. “As much as we hate to admit it, alcohol is a big part of our lives in college. It gives us something to group around, something to celebrate. It’s a freedom thing.”
Ball State Makeouts (@BSUMakeOuts) didn’t broadcast the lead up to the party, but the aftermath. The account recently deactivated and its administrator, Alex Bragg, could not be reached for additional comments since its disappearance.
While the site maintained somewhat of a notorious reputation among party people with a propensity for PDA, Bragg’s choices may have put many minds at ease.
In an interview before deactivating the account, he said one person featured in an image tweeted the original poster and the account and politely asked for a picture to be taken down. Bragg removed the photo.
Bragg is a senior and said he was looking for a successor to the account before it deactivated.
All it took for Frog Baby to have an unofficial voice on the web was four freshmen who wanted in on the social media action.
Administrators said they try to keep their content Ball State related so they can tap into the existing community. This leads to a better follower reaction, which means more retweets, the bread and butter of a Twitter account on the rise.
“Everything is free game, no racial slurs, no political views,” representative of the account Taylor Hartley said.
Like many student-run parody Twitter feeds, Frog Baby takes great care to maintain the anonymity of its administrators. They were interviewed over the phone and through a mediator.
Sometimes the growth of these accounts isn’t based on calculation or utility, it just happens.
BSU Chug that Beer (@Chugg_a_Lugg) grew from Connor Varney’s personal account.
“I got popular by sitting on my roof tweeting funny things about alcohol and living the college dream,” Varney said. “I didn’t really care about getting a lot of followers, I just wanted people to laugh and have a good time.”
The feed’s success prompted Varney to invite his audience to parties he would host. Like the parties posted on Party Updates, these gatherings boasted diverse groups of people.
He has since created a new personal account for himself.
Varney is a marketing major and said he uses “basic selling techniques” when posting on the feed. He doesn’t downplay any message he sends and always remains positive, citing rainy weekends as being a key time for uplifting tweets.
While he has no current plans for the account after graduation, Varney said he may “pass it off to some freshman.”
One account that will not be passed down for posterity is Campus Cowboy (@BallStateCowboy). Like BSU Chug That Beer, the account grew from its administrator Luke Bowen’s personal account into a Ball State sensation. The account topped out at more than 4,500 followers at its peak.
Students often recognized Bowen at parties and on campus as the man behind the account. If Bowen tweeted about being at a bar or party, people would recognize his signature cowboy hat and approach him. What originally presented fun grew tiring over time.
Graduation is the reason the account is ending but content is the reason it will not be passed on. Campus Cowboy is a general education major and didn’t want potentially inappropriate content that a successor may post to be associated with him as an educator.
This association could be more damaging for him because of its origin as Bowen’s personal account.
“I’m getting married,” Campus Cowboy said. “I’ll have a real life instead of sitting on the computer and wasting away time in class.”
There isn’t a clear-cut reason why these things are so popular, but if you ask Serenity Poe, it’s about unity.
“It’s definitely pride, coming from a school that often gets put down for being ‘not as good’ as IU or Purdue,” Poe said. “I have a lot of pride in the people I go to school with. I think I’m surrounded by great people.”
