Senior business major Chase Cangelosi takes a picture for the "Humans of SELU" Instagram page. Jennifer Dettwiller/The Lion's Roar
Senior business major Chase Cangelosi brings a new face of the university to present the diversity of the student population. Cangelosi explained the start of his journey of featuring a new student each day on the Instagram page, “Humans of SELU.”
“I got an iPhone 7 Plus in April-ish right after it came out,” said Cangelosi. “My friend Scott showed me that the portrait mode exists, and we took a couple pictures with it. And I was like, ‘These are some great pictures.’ So, I started taking pictures of everyone in my classes, you know, usually without their permission. Then I was like, ‘Wow, what do I do with all these pictures?’”
Cangelosi shared how a friend’s suggestion sparked an interest for a new social media project.
“And my friend Colette said, ‘How about you make an Instagram that’s kinda like ‘Humans of New York,’ and you can just be the Southeastern version,’’’ said Cangelosi. “So, every day I keep doing it because I love connecting people and building community and showing off what this campus has to offer.”
He explained what he hopes the account’s future holds.
“Eventually, I’m going to be turning it over to somebody else once I graduate because it’d be silly to carry it with me because none of the followers would care,” said Cangelosi.
He explained his process of selecting people he has featured.
“Every time I hit a milestone, I always put something on the story like who would like to be featured,” said Cangelosi. “Usually, I’ll get about 25-ish to 30-ish responses. I can usually find about 15 people. Otherwise, it’s usually people that I’ll just meet and start talking to.”
Cangelosi understands that people follow the account for the uniqueness of the students featured and to see how they represent facets of the university. He feels he has inspired campus organizations through his process.
“I have noticed that there are clubs like the Campus Activities Board, then the college of business and SGA that have had like a ‘Person of The Week’ or ‘Person of the Day’ type of thing,” said Cangelosi. “And it’s good to see things like that because they’ve definitely seen my page.’”
In the near future, he is thinking about starting an interview process for someone who can navigate the profile. He wants the page to remain consistent with what the followers expect when they see the profile pop up on Instagram. Cangelosi is set to graduate in Spring 2018, and he will send out news for when he begins his interviews for the new profile director.
