From Classroom to Content
By Andrew Duval and Niru Shivakumar Feb. 12, 2025
From dancing stars like Charli D’Amelio to science educators like Veritasium, the internet is a place for anyone to post content and create their personalized company as an influencer. With time spent online becoming a larger part of modern life, a number of students have taken their social media presence to the next level by becoming influencers themselves. In fact, according to a Morning Consult report, 86% of young Americans are willing to try out influencing.
Junior Bella Luu is an influencer at the school with over 112,000 followers on TikTok. Though Luu often feels like she is missing out on the more academics-oriented lives of most of her fellow students, she finds content creation worth the extra stress. Luu feels it is important to be genuine online, as doing so can help her followers get through the same struggles she went through or is going through.
“Social media became a passion for me when my viewers began to message me to tell me that I had helped their mental health or given them greater confidence and comfort within their body image. As such, in the future I want to use my platform for motivational and uplifting content for my audience,” Luu said.
While TikTok and Instagram are where Luu has obtained the most followers and engagement, she is focusing her efforts on growing on YouTube, as the platform tends to have the most loyal audiences and monetization opportunities. In fact, Google has already assigned her a YouTube manager, who invited her to red-carpet events and brand deals. The connections she has made will support her through life, and many were found through brand lunches and meetings in Los Angeles. Ultimately though, her goal is to create a sustainable business with her content without losing out on her personal privacy.
“I would not want my future kids to be placed in the same situation that some of my fellow influencers have—where their family is dependent on them being posted as a source of income. If I ever have to rely on regularly recording my family and sharing my personal life to make a living, I would want to stop being an influencer,” Luu said.
Luu still plans on attending college, and she wants to put her college degree towards improving her social media presence. She either wants to major in marketing or entrepreneurship, since she believes it would help her reach a wider audience but also allow her to have a backup career plan for job security.
Though Senior Caleb Park has a similar follower count on TikTok as Luu, his relationship with social media is different. Park views TikTok more as a fun hobby than a side hustle at the moment, but he sees potential for it to make him money in the future.
“People tend to have a misconception that I make money off of TikTok, but I have not made a single dollar off my work. Though I have received free products from brand deals, I was not eligible for monetization until recently because I was under 18 years old,” Park said.
In the future, Park hopes to move toward making content that he enjoys more—while the “POV” skits he creates are easy to make, he finds it more gratifying to make more meaningful content like vlogs. He noticed that in his experience with social media, he initially had an awkward phase where he was very fearful of being judged for his content. However, he eventually overcame it and his confidence in expressing himself authentically grew. Park’s social media presence has even helped him in his college application process.
“I was able to write a UC Personal Insight Question about my passion in video creation and how I transformed that skill into a professional advertising space. TikTok also helped me find a part time internship with a clothing brand called Niche Street LA, which was great,” Park said.
Park’s general advice for other aspiring content creators is to never hesitate, since someone will always judge. Through his content, he always strives to stand out by
being himself, never behind a facade, and presenting something new and unique to people’s feeds.
“People need to be less judgemental online and be more accepting of new creators who are trying to get started. I have had many people assume things about my identity based on a single video I published, which is not reasonable. While my social media presence is a small reflection of my humor, fashion or hobbies, it is important to understand that it does not nearly capture who I really am as a person,” Park said.
While Park and Luu have had varying experiences with content creation, they ultimately share a common trait: they both love making videos and do not plan on stopping anytime soon.
About the Contributors
Andrew Duval
opinions & feature world editor
I am an avid enjoyer of music and I love listening to it. I also like dogs because they are friendly. I love journalism because of its power to inspire change.
Niru Shivakumar
staff writer
Chaerin Kang
photographer
Me, Chaerin Kang is the photographer. I love to see landscape photos and love to take photos. This is my first year high school and also journalism. I like playing the piano, reading books, and taking photos.
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