Standing in an empty B-School breakout room, I check my reflection in my phone one last time, ready for take one. I have rehearsed the script I wrote for myself multiple times, but the familiar sense of anticipation knowing I will now say it settles in me. Most of all, though, I am eager to see my video come together. Microphone in hand, I press record, waiting a few seconds before cheerily saying my go-to intro: “Hi Billikens!”
My end-of-senior-year self did not see becoming a “SLUfluencer,” a term friends have used for my job creating social media content for SLU, as part of my college plan. However, seeing an Instagram story on @slu_official recruiting “Project Billikens” to make content about their college experience was an opportunity I found when I least expected it, but perhaps most needed it.
Project Billiken is a team of student content creators supervised by the Division of Marketing and Communications at Saint Louis University. We make content about our college experience for SLU’s official social media platforms, covering a wide range of academic programs, collegiate years and content styles. The summer before my freshman year, I was not 100% sure about the organizations and roles I wanted to fulfill on campus yet, but I knew I could not pass this one up.
I am someone who always has my digital camera in hand, ready to snap a moment — with flash, of course. I have spent hours pouring my creativity into designing hundreds of projects on Canva. At the same time, I love a good conversation or any chance to make a meaningful connection. I love to tell stories, as my identity is a collection of many of them. In an increasingly connected world and the age of social media, I have found content creation to be a means of fulfilling all of these passions.
In high school, whether I was managing a nonprofit’s Instagram page, designing flyers as the unofficial poster-designer of my class or capturing the tens of thousands of photos and videos in my camera roll, I felt seen and represented creatively and socially. While I have always been a creative person, I also grew up in a tight-knit Muslim community and spent much of my time creating content centered around my identities and stories. I was not initially sure how I would take these activities and feelings with me to SLU.
I knew I was not the first incoming college freshman facing this transition that felt worried. However, as a visibly Muslim woman, a first-generation college student and someone seeking opportunities for creativity and connection, my hopes were mixed with valid worries. Would I find a space for me? Would I just have to make my own?
When I submitted my content creation portfolio for consideration for this role, I showed up as my authentic self — showcasing my identities, communities and passions just as I wanted to present them at SLU. Now, I strive to keep showcasing that in my content for the role.
I show my favorite coffee shops and local spots to put a spotlight on how much my hometown of St. Louis has to offer. I highlight what my week looks like juggling my studies and involvement to help other students feel represented. I share clips showcasing my many identities and stories, from going to the mosque to designing pages for The University News, because all of them play a role in making my college experience what it is.
Creating content for Project Billiken has helped me step into spaces that have embraced me and make my own spaces. It takes courage, even for a self-proclaimed extrovert like myself, to turn on the camera and talk to thousands of my fellow Billikens with confidence, but doing so has helped me build that courage.
Looking back, this role was somewhat of a catalyst for the rest of what I became involved in at SLU. Preparing to see your face and words projected on social media is pretty good practice for putting yourself out there elsewhere on campus, so I did. Beyond just other opportunities, though, this role has allowed me to pursue deeper drives in my content creation.
I am driven to keep making my content when my sisters in the Muslim Student Association tell me about their excitement seeing someone who looks like them on SLU’s social media pages. I am driven to keep making my content when my friends, family and SLU community remind me how much my content could help even one student feel more represented. I am driven to keep making my content by my belief that all of us have a place at SLU.
Being a “SLUfluencer” on the Project Billiken team is a role I cherish not just for giving me an outlet for my content creation passion, but for giving me an outlet to find my voice and roles at SLU.
These days, as a new semester is in full swing, I take short clips here and there with my phone or snap pictures with my pocket digital camera in pursuit of my next project, excited at the prospect of continuing to make meaningful content true to me and, I hope, true to one or more of my fellow Billikens.
