(SATIRE) College of DuPage recently introduced a new Social Media Studies Program at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. The program nearly doubled COD’s enrollment numbers and has officially been confirmed to be available during the 2019-2020 school year. The program has a central focus on social media but offers classes on Photoshop techniques, how to sound sincere when apologizing in a video and a variety of classes for beginners. Classes will be taught exclusively by social media influencers who have a minimum of one million followers.

COD Student Life Employee Sally Higgins proposed the idea of a Social Media Studies Program after feeling jealous that her friends had more followers than her on Instagram.

“I was so mad because I’m like so much prettier than them, so I didn’t know why they had more followers. I decided to look into ways to get more followers and show them that I’m better than them, and that’s how the program began,” Higgins said.

Higgins proposed her idea to the Board of Trustees during a meeting in Jan. 2016. Chairman Frank Zea was thrilled with the idea and worked closely with Higgins to build the Social Media Studies Program.

Before entering the program, students must take an admissions exam. The exam places individuals in either a basic, intermediate or advanced study path and is scored solely on what students are wearing during the test and how many followers they have.

Once students finish and are placed in a study path, they’re required to choose one focus topic. Topics include, but are not limited to: brand endorsement, virtual apologies, YouTube video editing and the history of 21st century slang.

“I chose the study brand endorsement after being put in the intermediate track. I heard that people can literally make money doing that; so I knew that’s what I wanted to do for, like, forever, Social Media Influencer Sam Lynn said. “Oh and use code SamL24 to get 25% off your first order on Honey.”

Social Media Influencer and Zaful brand ambassador, Meg Smith, chose to study virtual apologies after accidentally using racist and sexist slang in a Tweet. Smith posted her hour-long apology video to YouTube after completing the class, but deleted it later saying YouTube was “glitchin.”

“OK, for the last time stop calling me racist. It was just a joke, and my dad’s half black anyways, so I can say that,” Smith said.

After justifying herself, Smith mentioned her favorite part of the program was the professor, Nash Grier, because the two had similar experience with online apologies. Grier gained the majority of his following in 2015 on the Vine app before it was shut down the next year. Similar to Smith’s situation, Grier also found himself using racist slang in a Tweet by complete accident.

“Yeah, I mean the Tweet was hilarious, but so many people unfollowed me. So I just deleted it. I figured people would forget about it since it was just one racist word, but apparently they didn’t. So I had to write a stupid apology, and I was actually really good at it. Turns out the trick is fake crying,” Grier said.

Up-and-coming YouTube star, Emma Chamberlin, taught classes on how to edit YouTube videos this year but will also be teaching classes on how to appeal and relate to your followers.

“Ever since I moved to L.A. and, like, got rich and famous, it’s been so hard for me to understand what poor people feel like. For example, I could never drive anything but my Tesla, but I pretend that I drive a Toyota so all the people that follow me think I’m relatable,” Chamberlin said.  

Students interested in the Social Media Studies Program can find the admissions exam link on Twitter or Instagram. Applicants must include their follower counts along with a most recent selfie on the exam to be considered for admittance.