A new hashtag has taken the campus’s social media presence to a new height. A stark contrast to the school’s official page, #CSUN shows a firsthand look into the shenanigans going on around campus as documented by the student body.
This semester, CSUN students have been using TikTok to post more about their experiences – normal things, such as dorm life and hanging around campus stalking the squirrels. Every few scrolls though, they post a video that leaves users wanting more of the story.
TikToker @adamnwhodeywant went to CSUN to host an impromptu meetup in front of the library in September. With only a two hour notice, there was a strong turn out. Of the TikToks taken that day, one of the most liked featured Adam saying, “all bops go to CSUN,” with a crowd of students cheering him on. The phrase is in reference to a hashtag popularized by TikTok user Willard Clark, or @clarkforpresident.
Clark, a marketing major in his second year at CSUN, has over 10,000 followers on TikTok. He makes content about his daily life, often dramatized with satire. Clark not only posts with #allbopsgotocsun, but he has a direct connection to the originator of the trending hashtag.
“@Undersandmase, he started the ‘all bops got to CSUN’ concept, and honestly, it was just to have fun,” Clark said. “I guess he had heard a lot of stories about what people’s significant others were doing at CSUN. I thought it was just gonna be a little CSUN inside joke, but I guess everyone knows about it now.”
Clark said the meme influenced the school’s reputation on TikTok.
“Unless you’re from the valley, you aren’t really thinking about it,” he said. “People who go to school in San Francisco are telling me about ‘all bops go to CSUN.’ It’s making the school look more fun, and honestly, it might seem like a bad reputation, but to me, I feel like any publicity is good publicity.”
Mason Williams, originator of #allbopsgotocsun and a sophomore studying business real estate at CSUN, shared the origins of the meme. He makes content surrounding the school and its students mixed with his own comedic stylings, eventually starting the hashtag.
“Me and my friend, we were at one of our homie’s houses. He was doing an interview, and the interviewer was talking about how his girlfriend went to CSUN,” Willams said. “We responded with, ‘Oh, that’s lowkey bad. All the bops go to CSUN.’”
From there, Williams and his friends got the idea to spread clips of the interview across social media, creating virality.
“I was looking at the CSUN hashtags before I came to the school … and I was like, ‘What can I do to make CSUN fun or lit in a way?’” Williams said. “That intention of ‘all bops go to CSUN’ was always there, I just didn’t know what it would be.”
While still fairly new, #allbops has managed to spread online across California. The school’s internet perception is being altered, one video at a time.
“This next school year, there’s a wave of people who came here just because of the CSUN [social media] stuff. It’s something funny that I just ran with. If it wasn’t that, then what would it be?” Williams said.
