If you’ve seen someone filming in Uris Library or sprinting across Ho Plaza with a selfie stick, odds are it’s not for a class project. At Cornell, TikTok has quietly become the extracurricular of choice. Between problem sets and prelims, students are producing dorm tours, dining hall reviews and “What I Eat in a Day” montages — and sometimes, they blow up. Videos tagged #Cornell have amassed tens of millions of views, with creators leaning into the aesthetic chaos of snow-covered hills, overfilled Duffield and 7 dollar smoothies at Mac’s.
But there’s more to the trend than entertainment. TikTok is where Cornell students package prestige, anxiety and ambition into 15-second clips. The goal? A moment of virality — or maybe just enough reach to feel seen. In a place built on performance, TikTok is the latest stage. And the audience is bigger than just this campus.
What makes this performance work isn’t just personality but also setting. Cornell’s campus doesn’t need a filter; its scenery naturally lends itself to viral content. Even a clip of someone slipping down Libe Slope can become a For You Page favorite if the audio hits right. The visuals don’t need much polishing: snowfall on Ho Plaza, Sage Chapel glowing at golden hour, or the predictable misery of prelim season.
That visual appeal is part of what propelled @andy.pulidoo to nearly 400,000 likes for a video complaining about how brutal the snow is. @jakefromnotstatefarm earned close to 300,000 likes for a walkthrough of a sleek new RBG dorm room. No stunts, no elaborate editing — just Cornell looking like Cornell.
It’s not just the content that’s compelling. It’s the setting. Whether the message is “this is beautiful” or “this is ridiculous,” the backdrop of a top-tier university makes both feel TikTok-worthy. Prestige, it turns out, makes even the cold look curated.
A TikTok doesn’t feel “Cornell” because of the background alone — it’s the subtext that counts. Dorm tours aren’t just for showing off storage hacks; they hint at housing rank. A 7 a.m. library vlog doubles as a brag about discipline. Even the meltdowns feel choreographed.
This isn’t accidental. At a university where students are trained to compete — for grades, clubs, recognition — it makes sense that content becomes another kind of resume. TikTok just rewards it differently. Instead of a title or leadership position, you get views. Instead of a recruiter, it’s the algorithm.
The line between sincere and strategic gets blurry. One creator might post about burnout, another might parody it. Both will hit the For You Page. Either way, the logic is the same: package your life in a way that performs. At Cornell, that instinct already runs deep. TikTok just makes it public.
Not all Cornell TikToks are made for Cornell students. Many are crafted with a different audience in mind: anxious high schoolers stressing over their CommonApp at 2 a.m.
Cornell Creators have figured out what works — and what works is stats. “How I got into Cornell” videos, GPA reveals, SAT scores and Common App essays rack up thousands of views. @mickey.gizaw earned over 1,000,000 views showing that the cost of attendance tops $89,000. Some students post full spreadsheets of their extracurriculars. Others just open their phones and vent.
A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that 71% of U.S. teens feel significant pressure to get good grades — and that pressure plays out online, where comparison culture turns college admissions into a content source. Other research shows that social media intensifies this stress by collapsing students’ identities into metrics of performance and prestige.
At Cornell, you don’t need to say you’re elite. You can just record on campus and let the algorithm do the rest.
Many viral videos rely on tone — a mix of self-awareness and strategic vulnerability. A TikTok that starts with “I got into Cornell with a 3.7 GPA” will hit harder than one that opens with stats alone. High school student viewers don’t just want success. They want details, and the key to their own success.
Creators who hit that balance tend to stick. Their feeds become familiar and specific: part diary, part Ivy League documentary. Whether through humor, struggle or transparency, Cornell TikTok is less about being perfect and more about being aspirational in a way that feels relatable.
When a video takes off, it can turn personal fast. Comments roll in. Strangers ask for your stats. People from home text you. Everyone is invested.”
TikTok rewards the kinds of posts that feel unfiltered, but performing authenticity comes at a cost. Oversharing becomes a strategy. Burnout becomes content. Some students double down, turning their feeds into serialized admissions confessionals. Others disappear entirely.
It’s easy to treat these videos like entertainment. But for the people behind them, they’re often high-stakes. A viral post might bring visibility, but it also opens the door to judgment — especially at a place like Cornell, where everyone is already trying to measure up. The algorithm doesn’t care if you’re struggling. It just knows if people keep watching.
Going viral at Cornell isn’t about being cool. It’s about being strategic — just vulnerable enough to seem relatable, just polished enough to look impressive and just specific enough to keep people watching.
TikTok doesn’t reward reality. It rewards presentation. The pressure, the prestige, the burnout — it all makes great content. And if the algorithm likes it, maybe you will too.
Fame might last a day. But the comments stay longer. So do the questions: Did it feel real? Was it worth it? Was it “Cornell” enough?
Probably. Until the algorithm decides burnout looks better in portrait mode.
Richard Ballard is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at rpb233@cornell.edu.
