Facebook Chef

Before college, I ate home cooked meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then, came freshman year where all I consumed was dining hall food and sophomore year where dinner was catered to my sorority house. So, it was not until this year when I moved into a house with a few friends where I was forced to learn to cook.  Thankfully, I used to stand side by side with my mom as she prepped our meals, so I had some what of an idea what to do.  But, after a month straight of grilled or baked chicken with a sweet potato and brussels sprouts or asparagus, I needed some new recipes.  I had always seen those "Tasty" videos on Facebook of people posting to their friends walls "Let's make this!!" So, I decided to try it out.

A semester later, I can proudly say that I pull almost all my dinner recipes from Facebook.  They are always so quick, easy, and so so good. Most of the time I don't even have to go searching for a recipe,
I will be scrolling through my timeline and one will pop up that I will bookmark for dinner the next week!

My favorite page has to be the "Tasty" one. My roommates and I get dip party ideas and desert ideas from there all the time.  And, although our creations never turn out as aesthetically pleasing as the videos show, they still taste amazing.

Pups for Post

As I sit here writing my blog post, I have two tiny creatures laying in my lap.  Originally they belonged to the Athens Area Humane Society, but after being their foster mom for two weeks, I couldn't give the loving pups back.

My roommates and I discovered the Athens Humane Society foster program via social media.  We noticed a group of friends always had the most adorable puppies and posted them on their social media tagging the humane society. So, naturally we called because we wanted some puppy love.  One of my roommates had been wanting to adopt a puppy for awhile, so we figured this would be a great way to see if we could handle it.


We have fostered puppies four times and every time it gets harder and hared to return them. I wish we could keep them all. But, it is such a great feeling knowing that we raise them for a month and start to train them, so that they are well adjusted to humans and are more likely to get adopted.  Every puppy we have fostered has not had to spend more than a day in the shelter, because they were adopted right out of our hands - all thanks to social media! We post hundreds of photos of our cute little babes, and people melt wanting one.

Finally, our forth time fostering, we settled and are in love with our two pups - Axel & Rose.  We
hope to continue to foster as they grow older, allowing them to grow up being friendly with other dogs and also accustoming the new puppies to be around other dogs.

If you would like to foster puppies or are interested in adopting from the Humane Society, visit their Facebook or Instagram to see the cutest creatures you could imagine! @athenshumanesociety

Recruitment Through Social Media

With college decisions coming out over this past month, social media has been flooded with not only acceptance letters of the young seniors, but with campaigns and, ultimately, advertisements from sorority girls across the nation.  Originally, sorority recruitment was a week long process that began a week before school. It was an equal playing field. Girls would tour houses and base their decisions off of who they met and which house they found the prettiest. But, in todays digital age, recruitment begins the moment you post you were accepted into college. 

An entire industry has been created out greek life recruitment.  Companies are paid thousands of dollars to showcase a group of 200 girls the best they can in a video or to manage their social media. One company in particular that is on the rise is CollegeWeekly. CollegeWeekly is basically a PR firm for greek life across the U.S.  They create and post content across college campuses. Another, that has been around a tad longer is Total Sorority Move, a sister website to the infamous Total Frat Move.  They write articles and rank greek life. Highschool girls begin seeing these posts and "ads" for sororities before they even apply to colleges. 

One of the biggest platforms for sorority promotion is Tumblr.  Tumblr is an endless feed for sororities to show case that they have the most fun, the prettiest, the sweetest, the most adventurous girls. Sororities push their Tumblr pages out to the world via other social media platforms to get their name out there. So now, when girls come through rush in August they know "I want to be a Zeta, KD, or ADPi" (all of which are just examples. 

Our digital age has changed the game for sorority recruitment. Millenials are spending more money now than ever on content creation - and all just so they can boast that a website find their group of 200 girls the "hottest" or "top tier." Quite silly if you ask me, and I'm the one who writes the thousand dollar checks for my sorority.  

UGA Exchange

Before spring break I was racking my brain trying to find ways to come up with some last minute

money for Spring Break. I already have a job, but am only able to work one or two days a week and I

considered Plato's Closet, but I feel like they kind of rip you off. I mean last time I sold to Plato's closet, they gave me $7 for a BCBG shirt that was originally $50 something dollars. Anyways, I was talking to my friends who use Ebay and they said it's really only helpful for high priced items.  Then, one of my friends suggested I post somethings on UGA Exchange. I had no clue what that was.  

UGA Exchange is a secret Facebook group with girls from UGA that sell and search for clothes.  My friend added me to it and I was introduced to a whole new world of resale. For a second I was worried because I saw more things I wanted to buy, but I took photos of my clothes and posted them. Within a couple hours girls messaged me asking if they could try on and bidding on it with different prices! Within an hour I sold two items and had $50 in my pocket for spring break!  I also saw a cute Victoria's Secret swimsuit top for only $5 that completed my spring break swim wardrobe. 

Spring time is also formal season.. and wedding season. So girls are in a constant search for gowns and nice dresses, which in the real world run for pretty high prices. On UGA exchange there is a plethora of discounted gowns! I mean like "beat the outlets" kind of prices. Girls who have worn $400 BCBG gowns one time resell them for $100. I am a junior and I sold my freshman and sophomore year formal dresses on there, which allowed me to afford a new formal dress for this year! 

UGA Exchange is a great idea. It connect people in the same area in search of the same things.  It has even developed its own lingo.  People will say "ISO" when they are "in search of" a certain item or "OBO" for "or best offer" if they don't know if their item will sell at the listed price. I buy or sell something at least every two weeks. It is a huge community with over 2000 members.  If you're interested in being added, just comment below! 

Twenty-First Birthdays

Today marks the last 21st birthday of one of my friends - thank goodness. Now, I don't mean that in a negative way, but a lot more goes into a 21st birthday celebration than would would think. You have to get balloons, create a sign, plan a party, bake a cake, make jello-shots, post a "HAPPY BDAY, ILY" Instagram, and much, much more.

Let's start with the sign:

This sign marks a milestone in a young lady's life. Believe it or not, this sign will be with her for the rest of the night. If you aren't quite sure what sign I'm talking about, think of an Thursday through Saturday in downtown Athens where you saw a girl with a cut out poster board in a shape of food, an animal, or a flower with the worlds "Name's 21st!" These things take weeks to design and create - trust me I'm making my 9th one right now! It wasn't until my junior year that I fully understood the point of these things. The sign is usually something funny or cute that depicts you - your favorite thing. For example, tonight's birthday girl LOVES Sour Patch Kids, so her sign is in the shape of a Sour Patch. When it is one of your friends' 21st birthdays, expect your timeline to be flooded with photos of her. EVERYONE wants to take a photo with the sign.

Next, the Insta post:

If you don't post it didn't happen.  There are two kinds of posts on a 21st birthday. First, the sentimental, obligatory post that shows the world you are the 21st birthday girls best friend - oh and of course to make her feel special.  These are the photos that flood anyone in your circles new feed all night. The second kind is the birthday girls post. Where she goes to the local liquor store, in Athens it is almost always 5 Points Bottle Shop, and posts holding her license and a bottle of something. It is basically her right of passage.

As I prepare for my ninth 21st birthday celebration tonight, I reflected on all the other ones.  Social media has played a huge part of every single one.  Aside form the obligatory instagram posts, there are the 21 second mystory on the checklist, the Facebook event to invite everyone to your pre game, and the "hey, the birthday girl lost her phone last night, lmk if you find it" post (which we have always recovered the next day).

Thank you social media, for making 21st birthdays worth it.

Tomi's Final Thoughts

The Super Bowl is the most watched program on national television, over one-hundred million people viewed it this year - and the most watched period of the Super Bowl is not the actual game, it is the half time show. This year Beyonce was the performer, and boy did she perform.  Her controversial performance went viral after the game. Social media took off criticizing and praising her performance.  One person in particular who went viral along side Beyonce was Tomi Lahren. 

Tomi Laren is a conservative reporter who was very perturbed by the half time performance.  She believed the Black Panther-esque costumes were inappropriate. In response to the show, Tomi filmed a segment ripping apart the absurd performance.  Her video went VIRAL. Tomi Lahren smacked Beyonce’s disgraceful, racist, cop-hating performance at the Super Bowl and the internet went crazy.  This video was on my news feed for days!  She received death threats from people, but that didn't stop her. She retorted beautifully in another segment on The Blaze.  Tomi used her voice and social media to express her opinion. Social  media can be the most powerful thing to help or harm you.  

As an up and coming reporter, this has landed her spots on tons of shows across the country, but it may also harm her chances for future employment opportunities.  Personally, I loved her passion and honesty - but to some it was offensive.  

Free People - The App

Most people are more at ease when making a purchase online via a desk top or laptop, however Free People is trying to challenge that.  With the Free People App, customers are better able to secure their accounts - including their credit cards, addresses, and past purchases. The App also offers a more "brick and mortar" feel than the typical website browser provides.  

Jed Paulsen, the director of E-commerce at Free People said that is is the way of utilizing Big Data in the E-commerce world.  In store associates can talk about fit and styling but it’s also powerful to read customer reviews quickly and see how others are wearing the clothes - it is like having an associate in your pocket!  Customers can also submit photos of themselves on the App to show other consumers what an outfit may look like, as well as a chance to be featured on the social media accounts! Another exciting thing about the App is that it pulls from both in store and warehouse inventory. So, while the App has your address, it can ship from a store near you to get it to you quicker than the online ware house that could be states away. 

I use this App all the time for my purchases. At first, I was kind of skeptical about how I felt using an app to make clothing purchases, but I loved the capabilities it provided - like the customer reviews and photo uploads. Now, when I'm shopping and a certain clothing item doesn't have a review or a consumer photo, I am actually kind of disappointed and less likely to purchase the item! It encourages more people to interact with the app!