Eisgruber throws it back with dance trends on TikTok

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional. This article is part of The Daily Princetonian’s annual joke issue, which you can find in full here. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet!

Per a statement released by Dean of the College Jill Dolan, the University has created an account on TikTok in an effort to make the administration appear more “hip with the cool kids.”

TikTok is a social media platform where users make short videos and participate in various “trends,” such as dancing and making jokes to certain shared audio clips. TikTok’s powerful algorithm creates a “For You” page based on popular videos and individual user likes, curating the ideal content to keep users glued to the addictive app for hours on end.

The University’s account is currently being managed by University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83. At the time of publication, all 13,973 videos posted by the account, @princethots, feature Eisgruber participating in a dance trend popular on the platform. A video of him doing the Renegade has 4000 likes, and his most liked video features him throwing it back to Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 song “Savage” in front of a green screen image of Nassau Hall.

“I’ve really loved learning all these new dance moves. My favorite is probably the dice roll,” Eisgruber said in a statement to The Daily Princetonian. “I’m thinking about cancelling my upcoming Freshman Seminar about free speech to teach a dance course instead. I think I’ve found my true calling.”

Eisgruber’s new passion has not escaped the attention of students. Ally Musik ’23 has seen his videos all over her For You Page.

“At first, I thought it was funny. I even followed the account. However, as time has progressed, it just got to be too much. He was posting nearly every hour,” said Musik.

Eisgruber isn’t the only administrator on TikTok. Although not featured on the University’s official account, Dolan is also creating content on the platform. Her niche? ASMR videos. Using the handle @netflixandjill, she’s acquired a following of nearly 20,000 followers and posts videos of her walking around Firestone Library leafing through books, stirring iced coffee, and whispering clarifications to University Policy. Dolan’s account is not following the University’s, something she elected not to comment on.

Next month, Eisgruber plans to replace the periodically released Campus Messages with links to TikToks. “I’ve learned a lot about communication from my time on the app. People don’t want to read long messages about the pandemic in email form … they want to see me dance to them,” Eisgruber said.

Similarly, Eisgruber plans to invite students across the University to participate in his TikTok videos. “I really want to do a collab with one of the a cappella groups. I’ve seen a lot of videos about writing a musical for the Disney film Ratatouille, and I think our students could really body that trend,” said Eisgruber.

When asked about his virtual fame aspirations for the future, Eisgruber responded that “in the short term, I think this is just a hobby. However, I could definitely see myself moving to LA in a few years.”