How these Gen Zs built communities from sharing their college lives online

MANILA, Philippines – A decade ago, vlogging campus life meant filming with a bulky camera, editing for hours on a laptop, and uploading a polished vlog to YouTube. Today, all it takes is a smartphone and pressing the record button on TikTok.

For Gen Z students, documenting college life has become the norm for sharing experiences, connecting with peers, and even building skills and opportunities that extend beyond the classroom.

The stories of Russco Jarviña, Sophia Margarette To, and Joaquin Tiu reveal how young Filipinos are not just growing up — they are growing up online.

Beginnings of content creation

Sophia, a BS Psychology junior from the Ateneo de Manila University, never intended to enter the world of social media. Her earliest online presence came from her mother, who would post photos of her and her brother on Friendster.

Her own content creation began all the way back in 2016, when she decided to post a room tour as a grade schooler.

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“I created a YouTube channel just to post my room tour. If I remember correctly, it was eight minutes long. But people came and actually watched my video,” she shared. 

That early interest encouraged her to keep going, and as the platforms evolved, so did her presence. Sophia would explore more ways to share her life online — from posting playful clips on Musical.ly like many kids her age, to experimenting with different trends that eventually became the foundation of the success of the TikTok account she uses today.

Russco’s journey, meanwhile, started out a little differently. The BS Entrepreneurship graduate from De La Salle University only began content creation in 2020, just a year before he became a college freshman.

“In the middle of the 2020 to 2021 gap, that’s where most of my followers came from. I was in the content creation world for a long time, and my content primarily [consisted of] vlogs. Since school was part of my life, I figured I’d also vlog my college life,” he said. 

It’s the same for Joaquin — a BS Hotel, Restaurant, and Institution Management junior from the University of the Philippines Diliman — who started posting videos over the pandemic. 

Back then, though, it was just a way for him to have fun. He’d often just post TikTok trends from home, not really thinking about where content creation could take him yet. 

But all this would change when Joaquin would transfer from UP Iloilo to UP Diliman. 

“I actually delayed myself on purpose for content creation, because when I shifted to the UP Diliman campus, I had to shift courses as well, but for me, it was worth it, because this is where I work. In Iloilo, there [weren’t] that [many] opportunities for content, for influencers. I’m a big believer in striking when the iron is hot, so I took the opportunity,” he said.

He eventually relocated to Manila in 2023, and said the move has helped him balance both school and creating content.

Turning campus life into content and balancing school

As their online following grew, Sophia, Russco, and Joaquin began exploring how college life itself could be turned into a form of content.

If you spend hours scrolling through TikToks or Instagram reels, you’ve probably seen at least one of Russco’s “a day in the life” videos, where he would share his daily school routine and his interactions with classmates and professors. It was a format he just took on in 2023, but even before then, he had already been sharing much of his life to the public through random vlogs here and there. 

Meanwhile, Sophia’s posts, often voiceover vlogs and casual snippets from her day, revolve around her experiences as a student, making her “student image” recognizable to followers. 

Many of these posts originated from unplanned moments between academic and work responsibilities, such as studying or taking quizzes in the car, or preparing for work events that required filming. The spontaneity of it all is what led viewers to fall in love with her content in the first place. 

While documenting all these candid moments may seem easy, it’s proving to be quite the balancing act for Sophia, who is taking a pre-med course. 

It’s not just filming her days at school. While on campus, she finds herself responding to work messages and editing videos. There are even occasions when brand deals require her to shoot on school grounds, adding another layer of complexity to balancing school and her social media presence.

It’s a dilemma many student content creators are familiar with. Some of them, like Joaquin, turn to giving audiences a more unfiltered peek into their daily lives to sustain their online presence. 

“I would probably go live three times a week, sometimes four or five hours a day. That allowed me to keep doing what I was doing while creating content. Sometimes I would study [during livestreams], do chores, or vlog at school,” Joaquin shared in a mix of Filipino and English.

It’s safe to say that campus life for these three individuals did not just shape their content, but also helped them build communities and connect with others online.

Content creation as an opportunity

What began as a way to share their daily lives gradually evolved into opportunities with brands and organizations — giving them experiences they never would have imagined.

Take Sophia’s recent collaboration with the Hong Kong Tourism Board, for example, where she traveled to Hong Kong for a Halloween-themed campaign, where she and fellow content creator Russco attended events that highlighted the city’s seasonal celebrations. 

“I want to be able to do more trips that are for work and not just for vacation, [and also] share that with other people, and not just see it, like have them see it through my eyes,” she pointed out.

It’s the same for Russco, who expressed how being a student content creator opened doors to unique opportunities with various companies. He began receiving brand deals because companies appreciated the way he documented his life as a student. Certain brands would even require him to film their campaigns on campus. Soon after, his work extended beyond DLSU, with requests to create content in other schools.

“Doing content in school really allowed me to connect with people and gain experiences that shaped my career,” he shared, noting how several brands had him engaging in fun activities in different schools — from giving away donuts to doing gadget demos — or speaking at TED talks.

Joaquin shared similar sentiments, highlighting the personal significance of working with the brands he grew up with and those he never thought he would have the opportunity to work with.

“I’ve worked with a lot of high-end brands. I’ve worn a lot of great Filipino designers. But for me, the brands that I grew up with, which are not high-end, are actually what [mean] a lot to me,” he said.

“Growing up, I remember the time when I really couldn’t even afford to buy [local brands]. And now with content, it’s giving me the opportunity to not only afford it, but to also represent, be an ambassador [and] work with them. I’ve been on billboards also.”

With these experiences came valuable lessons about time, effort, and personal growth.

“I’m just so grateful that I’m able to learn those things as early as college and even high school. Because I don’t want to be thrown into the real world after college, not knowing how to deal with these things,” Sophia reflected, adding that she still has more to learn. 

It hasn’t been an easy ride, but Russco believes that being a content creator helped him grow both as a person and as a working student.

“It was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to school so bad all the time because I enjoyed vlogging. I enjoyed interacting with people. I enjoyed the Lasallian community. I enjoyed the different experiences, different people I get to meet whenever I visit campus, and the different activities I can do,” he said.

“The biggest lesson I learned about being a student content creator would be number one, to do your best and when you do your best in everything that you do, give your 100% effort, and always choose to be kind, and dapat wala kang tinatapakan na tao (you don’t step on anyone).”

Joaquin learned the importance of time management as a content creator, emphasizing that studying in UP is “no joke when it comes to academics.”

“I’ve had to learn how to be able to not only manage my time, but to also make sure that all of my outputs, whether it be content or [academics], is something I’m proud of. It also taught me how to work hard for a lot of different things at the same time,” he said.

“It taught me, too, to also be thankful for everything I have because I know a lot of people who are fresh out of college who struggle to find a job or, of course, the minimum wage here in Manila — it’s very low. For me, I remind myself every day that one posting could sometimes feed a family. It humbles me.” – Rappler.com

Alfon Cabanilla is a Rappler intern studying AB Communication at the Ateneo de Manila University.