From sleeping accounts to outfit pages, students from schools all around the country have created social media accounts in order to highlight the non-academic behaviors of their respective student bodies. Bronx Science has recently hopped onto that trend, with a plethora of students’ personal accounts amassing thousands of followers. While some students across the country find these accounts to be a humorous way to share pictures of friends and spotlight Bronx Science student culture, others find these pages to be invasive and even disrespectful.

Community accounts have become popular through the social media platform TikTok, where original videos about school Instagram pages reach up to hundreds of thousands of likes.

The Bronx Science community has an account called @bxscibigblackpuffas. This account posts photos of students in black coats and jackets. The “big black puffa” meme also originated from TikTok, where the user @hittinlikegrabba posted a video saying, with a heavy New York accent, “Are you from New York even? Are you from New York even? Do you have a big, black puffer jacket, even?” 

The Bronx Science student administrators for @bxscibigblackpuffas, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “We first got the idea after seeing other Instagram accounts, created for other schools, on TikTok. The inspiration was from the ‘big black puffa jacket’ video and how the audio started trending on TikTok. We thought it would be a humorous account dedicated to the video.”

Many students who submit photos to community accounts see it as a fun way for the school community to come together. Some students, however, believe some submissions go too far. Ulises Ponce ’23 said, regarding these community pages, “These accounts are a great stress reliever for a lot of us during times of uncertainty regarding our academic and personal lives during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I think they cover so many aspects of our experiences as students, from our shared stresses, to daily occurrences, and even just random happenings.” Ponce continued, “However, I think it’s this sense of disconnection from the content on the accounts that makes both account admins and students fail to think more critically about who and what is being shared on these accounts. My problem is not so much with the concepts of a lot of these accounts, but the reality that some students post without other students’ consent.” 

Instagram pages such as @bxscibigblackpuffas are fun accounts that aim to bring joy to our community, especially as many students are continuing to adjust to in-person learning after eighteen months of being remote. It’s important, however, for students to be mindful of the way their submissions and comments may negatively affect their peers.

Community accounts have become popular through the social media platform TikTok, where original videos about school Instagram pages reach up to hundreds of thousands of likes.