The Boston Globe
This Amherst College student is part of a new generation of online creators turning campuses into content factories.
Grace Nah, a second-year student at Amherst College studying physics and mathematics, stood for a portrait in her dorm room in Amherst. Nah balances her coursework with creating content for her social media platforms. Erin Clark/Globe Staff
updated on April 30, 2026
8 minutes to read
AMHERST — If you want to interview Amherst College influencer Grace Nah, a.k.a. “your fav blue hair girl,” you have to go through her people. Specifically, her Los Angeles-based talent manager, who coordinates a time for you to meet once Nah is back from spring break in the Dominican Republic.
“It was actually a brand trip,” Nah said upon her return, sitting in her residence hall’s empty common room.
Meaning: Nah worked with the travel company EF Ultimate Break and later shared glimpses of her vacation sunbathing, sightseeing, and drinking piña coladas on TikTok and Instagram, where she has 400,000-plus followers combined. “SO TEA,” one fan commented on her various beach shots, showing her in various bikinis.
For the olds, tea means hot. But the life of a college student influencer isn’t always glamorous. Back in Amherst, Nah, a physics and math major in her sophomore year, was battling a cold, her midnight-blue hair and baggy jeans damp from dashing home in the rain from her thermal biophysics class. She still had homework to do, though first she’d have to get through a Zoom meeting for a new campaign she’s working on but can’t discuss because of a nondisclosure agreement.
At 20, Nah is one of a growing number of college students balancing full course loads with budding careers as content creators. Some have dedicated audiences in the millions while others are just starting to build their personal brands and portfolios. They use their platforms to share study tips in “studytok” videos, beauty tips in “Get Ready With Me” videos, or more general life lessons in inspirational posts where the unspoken message is: “You can do it, too!”
Grace Nah laughed with classmates during a study session on campus. – Erin Clark/Globe Staff
While there are college influencers of all kinds — including “looksmaxxers” and athletes with name, image, and likeness deals — some of the most successful are Gen Z women like Nah who’ve managed to leverage campus life to create profitable partnerships with companies targeting their peers.
“It’s not necessarily about creating viral moments,” said Nah’s manager, Cassandra Couwenberg at UnderCurrent. Instead, brand partners are “looking for people who have built sustainable community,” she said.
Last year, Nah hauled in a six-figure income on brand partnerships. She’s been using the money to pay her college tuition and is now “completely financially independent,” she said.
College creators often attract fellow students eager to buy what they’re selling, including the dream of being an influencer themselves.
“If your school has any kind of name value . . . you can capitalize the [bleep] on your school name, OK,” Nah, wearing a giant hair curler, tells her followers in one video.
“literally doing this,” one commenter responded, “that nyu tuition isn’t gonna pay itself.”
Globally, the creator economy crested to $205 billion in 2024, and it is projected to reach $1.35 trillion by 2033. It’s no wonder Syracuse University announced last fall it would build the Center for the Creator Economy to train the next generation of influencer-entrepreneurs, the first of its kind in the country.
“There’s a recognition of — and also an alarm [about] — the role that influencers and creators play in wider civic and public life,” said Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication at Cornell University in New York.
Grace Nah at her desk in her dorm room on campus. – Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Digital creators are playing an unofficial role in marketing their higher education institutions, too. For prospective applicants, a video created by a student influencer can be just as eye-opening as a campus tour.
Some schools have started resharing the content. Nah counts Amherst College president Michael A. Elliott among her followers.
At Harvard, one of the most prominent influencers is Olivia Zhang, with 202,600 followers on TikTok, who at age 20 is the founder and CEO of the global nonprofit Cancer Kids First and now the author of a new book about it, “YOUth: The Young Person’s Guide to Starting a Nonprofit.”
Zhang posts a mix of work-hard and play-hard videos. However, it’s her 2023 short titled “Harvard decision reaction‚” which shows her and her mother crying and embracing upon learning of her acceptance, that’s among her most viral: 3.4 million views. It resonated not only with other children of immigrants, but also with parents who related to her mother, who’s from China.
“A lot of the content with my mom does really well,” said Zhang, who grew up in Arlington, Va.
She makes no secret of her ambition. At the same time, Zhang is careful to not seem too perfect, occasionally sharing videos of herself dancing at a club with friends or bed rotting alone.
Harvard student and influencer Olivia Zhang, 20, is the founder of the global nonprofit Cancer Kids First and now the author of a new book about it, “YOUth: The Young Person’s Guide to Starting a Nonprofit.” – Submitted Photo
Boxes of products sent to Grace Nah sat on the floor of her dorm room. Nah receives items from brands as part of her work creating content for her social media platforms. – Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Many college influencers see each other at networking events. Together, whether they are mega, micro, or somewhere in between, they are rewriting the script of college life — literally.
“I’m the CEO, I’m the video director, I’m the script writer, I’m the editor,” said Nah. “I do everything.”
Well, almost: Couwenberg takes care of details on the business end, and Nah’s college roommate has become her de facto videographer and occasional plus one.
Social media began as a hobby for Nah, who started out with just her phone and “a janky $15 tripod,” as she once told her fans. More and more, it’s become a demanding career.
“There are a lot of people who might see somebody like Grace and think, ‘It’s just a college student posting videos,’” said Couwenberg, “but the discipline she has, the level of visual creativity and editing style — there are so many different pieces of the puzzle that have clicked together for her, and it is not accidental.”
Nah has a portfolio of partnerships including brands such as Adobe, Venmo, Grammarly, Capital One, Urban Outfitters, Door Dash, and Tinder. For the dating app, she modeled seasonal date outfits.
For most of its clients, UnderCurrent said most offers for a single brand partnership are in the mid-five figures for a post or set of posts, according to Couwenberg.
Born in South Korea, Nah immigrated to the United States at age 9 and grew up in New Jersey and Long Island, N.Y. She got into posting about beauty and fashion during COVID-19, when she was still in high school. She soon found herself balancing nine AP courses with a host of extracurriculars, including her role as cheerleading captain.
Her interest in developing her online presence grew after she enrolled at Amherst.
Other college creators were tagging their schools in videos about campus life. But Nah noticed Amherst didn’t really have a resident influencer.
“My big strategy was using the college name — because high school students are always searching up, ‘What does a day in the life of a student at this college look like?’“ she said.
Grace Nah walked across campus in Amherst. Nah is part of a growing group of college students building social media followings alongside their academic work. – Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Her first videos tagging Amherst College showed dorm life, dining, and the campus in all its autumnal glory, prompting one follower to comment, “I wanna go to Massachusetts just for this college omg.”
Other posts showed “the raw sides of freshman year,” she noted, including bad test scores, weight changes, financial aid worries, stress over picking a major, and general rants about being “a lost college student.”
College can be lonely, Nah said, but social media became “a connection tool.” In addition to informal “yaps,” she connects with viewers through “reflection” videos where she talks candidly about her emotions, whether she’s “crashing out” because she was confused in her lab class or peeling back the layers of guilt and pride she feels as the child of immigrants.
Nah has also become more intentional about promoting women in STEM, along with the idea that “you don’t have to tame down your image just to fit into the lab room,” she said.
Sometimes all of these themes coalesce in a single post, like one she recently shared wearing her outfit of the day (ootd) and dancing to a techno track in her dorm room before heading to class: “my laundry is overflowing omg,” reads the caption, “#physicsmajor #ootd #fitcheck #womeninstem #outfitinspo.”
For many influencers, relatability is the secret sauce. Ezra Holt, a 19-year-old nursing student from Maine, considers herself a “very micro-creator” at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her most popular videos are often ones that have taken the least time to put together, “when I literally just put my phone up and start recording,” she said.
If she’s learned anything during her short journey as a content creator, she said, it’s to “just really be yourself online.”
For Holt, who gives off young Jennifer Coolidge vibes, that might mean sharing a video of herself struggling to open a container of almond milk while wearing a fluffy pink sweatsuit, overlaid with the text: “Okay maybe I understand why girls keep those things (boyfriends) around.”
Ezra Holt, a 19-year-old nursing student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, considers herself a “very micro-creator” and often makes videos about beauty and sorority life. – Submitted Photo
As a member of Sigma Kappa, Holt often makes videos with tips on student and sorority life, from how to stock a shower caddy to what kind of “rush outfit” to wear up north. Viewers can buy discounted products through her affiliations with various shopping sites, including Amazon, where she earns a modest revenue helping to sell everything from self-tanner to chickpea snacks.
While Holt wants to build her portfolio to the point where she can make a profit, it’s not all about money. Some students have told her that her videos helped them decide to attend UMass Amherst, Holt said, and “I have new girls in my sorority come up to me and say, ‘Oh my gosh, your videos helped me so much during rush.’”
There are haters, too.
After Holt posted a video about unhealthy coffee drinks, commenters on the campus app Yik Yak were “making fun of my hair, making fun of my voice,” she said.
Nah was criticized on the campus app Fizz during her freshman year at Amherst, with some anonymous commenters calling her “cringe.” Knowing that they were students she passed every day suddenly made her campus feel small.
Being a student is a tough enough job on its own that often keeps her in the library until midnight. She doesn’t get much downtime, she recently hadn’t been to the gym in a month, and some days, she said, “I’m constantly crying, like, ‘Why am I even doing this?’ ”
In the world of a content creator, though, everything is content.
Nah eventually made a video about being mocked online and ticked off a laundry list of “what cringe has brought me,” including a lucrative career and a supportive community online.
If being cringe means “helping people feel less alone,” she told her fans, “then I’ll gladly keep being cringe.”
Hilary Burns of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
