Parker students participate in many activities beyond the four walls of the classroom. Some Parker students explore their interests and talents through optional extracurriculars provided by Parker, such as Model UN, Grape Jam, Jazz Band, theater productions, “The Weekly,” or “The Clark Street Journal.” Other students may participate in one or more of the 13 different Middle School team sports offerings and 25 Upper School athletic teams. 

While Parker provides a plethora of activities for students, there are some interests not supported by a Parker-sponsored activity. One such activity is found on social media platforms. This activity is more than just the casual scrolling of Instagram or sending messages and photos through Snapchat. These social media interested students create content rather than consuming content.

On January 16, 2019, Parker freshman Evan Sato created an Instagram page, @3spec, to display his skill at Fortnite mobile. After playing Fortnite for the first time in 2017, Sato immediately wanted to be crowned the best Fortnite player in the grade. Sato continued to beat his friends regularly during the 2018 school year. After playing nearly four hours a day throughout the summer of 2018, Sato had developed skills that could not be claimed by many participants in the international Fortnite community. 

Upon consideration, Sato thought there was a higher use for his Fortnite talent and created @3spec, an Instagram profile dedicated to sharing Fortnite play. Sato’s goal was to share his love for Fortnite with an audience wider than the Fortnite players in the Class of 2023, and he thought that the Instagram platform would provide the easy access needed to create Fortnite conversation. According to Sato, his goal was “to reach around 150-200 people. I just wanted to create a community where other people with my same passion could come together.” 

As Sato released more content, screen recordings of Sato playing, and winning, Fortnite led to the growth of his @3spec account. At the conclusion of the 2019 school year, approximately six months after creating the account, Sato’s @3spec account had 7,000 followers. Once Sato surpassed his original goal of 150-200 followers, he said that the number of “followers became less and less important” and “the connections with other players became more important.” 

After continuing to post Fortnite content during the Summer of 2019, @3spec gained another 3,000 followers, eclipsing 10,000 followers before the start of the new school year. As Sato began freshman year, he said “he couldn’t find time for Fortnite” but instead had to focus on his academics. Consequently, he now posts with less frequency. While Sato’s @3spec accounts may only have been active for 1 year, Sato said he felt “creating a social media account was very beneficial. Not only did I connect with people, but I also developed a passion for social entrepreneurship and creating a brand.”

Senior Jared Saef had his first glimpse of social media success in early November of 2019. Saef uploaded a TikTok of himself and his friends dressed up as college deadlines for Halloween. One day after uploading, Saef found that his account was getting views and likes. For the next five days, the video collected over 287,000 views and over 41,000 likes. 

Following the success of the Halloween TikTok, Saef was inspired to post his own original songs about being a member of Grape Jam along with fellow choir students. “It was a fun way for me and other choir students to write our own verses and reach out to the musical theater community on TikTok,” Saef said. 

Unlike Saef’s viral Halloween TikTok, these posts focus on his singing and experiences in choir. Saef “found there was a large Jewish community on TikTok,” and channeled this knowledge to further connect with users by making and posting videos about the pains of sitting through a Jewish service. 

“TikTok is a really cool social media platform because it doesn’t have any intended purpose,” Saef said. “Overall, I think it is a really cool community of Gen Zers who can come together and share memes, and that’s why I was drawn to it so much.” 

While Saef’s fame arises from TikTok, he also maintains a successful Instagram page about Chicago two-flat buildings. This account, @2FlatsOfChicago, captures “Chicago’s very own multi-family masterpieces” and has one thousand followers. On this account, Saef posts photographs of two-flat buildings across Chicago and includes commentary about what he finds interesting about the structure or why a building was constructed in a particular way. 

“I’ve always loved Chicago architecture and Midwestern Brick Architecture,” Saef said. “I was following another architecture account and that was my inspiration to create @2FlatsOfChicago.” 

When he first started this account in December of 2018, Saef tried to post every other day to gain a steady stream of active followers. “It’s been challenging at times, and it’s also been very rewarding,” Saef said. “I love meeting people through my account, and I love seeing people comment on my posts.” Saef also wanted to bring awareness to the overlooked parts of Chicago. While he did not have a specific following goal, Saef grew his page by researching hashtags and reaching out to larger pages who run a similar style page. 

Saef’s following is majority millennial males, while 53% of the people are from Chicago and the other 47% are from Chicago suburbs and other midwestern cities. “I learned about the importance of inclusion and diversity of neighborhoods,” Saef said. “People wanted to see their neighborhoods represented, and it shows the importance of perspective. Not only that, but it taught me good photography skills.” 

Saef takes all photos on his iPhone, which allows him to track the addresses. @2FlatsOfChicago became such a big role in his identity that Saef put his interest and details about his account in his personal statement for college applications.  

While Saef and Sato have both found success on these various social media platforms, there are other Parker students who have also pursued their passion through social media. Accounts like @Lincoln.FN, (A Fortnite account with over 1,000 followers run by Jason Butler-VanderLinden) and @Easy_Betting, (a sports account with nearly 1,000 followers run by Alex Schapiro). Social media has become another tool for Parker students to broaden their horizons and become the new generation of content creators.