Some students have found a unique way to market the LSU experience to others: vlogging. 
Though the cohort of student vloggers creating content that markets the LSU experience were not approached by the University to do so, students routinely upload college and lifestyle vlogs for their YouTube subscribers.
Just this semester, the University’s vloggers have shared monumental events such as Mike VII’s birthday celebration, fraternity and sorority rushes, the opening of the UREC and the inaugural home game and tailgate of the season.
Director of the Social Media Analysis and Creation Lab Lance Porter said there is a small team forging the University’s social media. Though the vloggers are unacknowledged, the contributions of student vloggers are a significant part of a universities’ social media presence, he said.
“They do a very good job based on the resources that they have,” Porter said. “It hasn’t always been that way. I don’t think LSU is unique in that area. I think most universities don’t throw enough resources at social media.”
Porter said the University could, and does, benefit from the work of its student vloggers.
“It provides a way to talk about the University from a student-centric view,” Porter said.
Porter said he is uncertain about the prospect of the University compensating these student vloggers.
“The main thing about any blog or vlog is that it has to be authentic, and it has to be from the true voice of the person that is creating it,” Porter said. “If it becomes something that’s produced too much, then it seems fake. And no one wants to interact with that kind of content, and it would actually be worse than not having it.”
Interior design senior Katharina Beliveau, known as “hellolabgroup” on YouTube, boasts a subscriber count of over 3,400 and has amassed almost 350,000 views as a lifestyle and “Let’s Play” vlogger. Despite her YouTube popularity, Beliveau said she is a self-described introvert. 
“I would sit in my dorm, and I’d be lonely; so I’d watch ‘Let’s Play’ videos and vloggers on YouTube,” she said. “I would do that while I ate, and it would make me feel less alone; and then about a year ago…I said ‘you know what? I’m going to start making videos. Maybe someone will watch my videos and do the same thing.’”
After learning her subscribers were interested in her life outside of gaming, she said she began producing college vlogs.
“My first few vlogs were a mix between sorority events and school,” Beliveau said. “I didn’t want people to think LSU: Greek Life. That’s not the only thing going on at LSU. So that’s when I started doing more studying shots, so that people would also see that, ‘no man, I’m struggling, and I have to work my butt off.’”
Beliveau said she champions the normal person.
“More people with normal lives and normal interests should be on YouTube,” she said. “Show people the cool stuff that there is in Baton Rouge. It’s not L.A., but we have cool stuff, too.”
Pre-veterinary medicine sophomore and fitness vlogger Abigayle Alleman expressed these same sentiments.
Known simply as “Abby Alleman” on YouTube, Alleman said she never anticipated her channel getting views outside of herself and a few friends.
Alleman’s purpose for YouTube was to post memory vlogs like vacations and life events. When she posted her freshman move-in day vlog in the 2016 fall semester, Alleman’s audience exploded.
“People want to see stuff from LSU,” she said. “I know when I was about to move in, I was looking up LSU videos, LSU dorms, LSU games. I was looking at videos of other people doing it, so I did…and it got a lot of views and I was like, ‘You know what, I should probably do this for the [Alabama] game.’” 
Alleman said the two most important goals of her vlogs are to be honest about the day and to give viewers her all in her videos.
Mass communication senior McKenzie McClain* is an example of a how a trained communicator can galvanize YouTube.
“Mackie speaks,” which is the name of McClain’s YouTube channel, began at a high school summer program hosted by the Manship School of Mass Communication. The program encouraged its participants to create a WordPress blog.
McClain maintained her blog and eventually switched to vlogging during her sophomore year at the University.
“In high school, I didn’t have a lot of friends. So when I’d come home, I’d watch YouTube and those were my friends,” McClain said. “So when I came to college, I was like, ‘I’m going to start my channel, and it’s going to be about college because that’s what I like to watch.’”
Since then, McClain has become a Manship Ambassador, Genesis Mentor and active member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
McClain champions being a college vlogger, but as a senior, she has been coping with the fact that the focus of her channel will be changing drastically in May 2018.
“As far as the whole college vlog thing, that’s just where I am now,” McClain said. “My life is college. My life is meetings. That’s what college is. Homecoming court and radio shows – that’s what I’m doing now, so when I’m not doing that, I’ll be doing whatever it is that I am into.”
“Go back to the prime concept of YouTube,” Beliveau said. “What was YouTube called in the beginning? Broadcast yourself. Broadcast who you are and not this crazy alter ego that you would like to be. It’s okay to just be yourself.” 
*Editor’s Note: McKenzie McClain is a former employee of Tiger TV and currently volunteers for KLSU.
 

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Caroline Magee

LSU fitness vlogger Abby Alleman talks about her healthy lifestyle on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017 at the UREC on campus.