{"id":4088,"date":"2021-11-16T12:24:37","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T17:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=4088"},"modified":"2022-02-15T13:16:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T18:16:07","slug":"tiny-plastic-babies-create-community-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2021\/11\/tiny-plastic-babies-create-community-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Plastic Babies Create Community for Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gabriella Perez-Hernandez ran to the fifth floor of the West building, nervous that someone would get there before her. She arrived, grateful she found her prize: a tiny plastic baby.<\/p>\n

A couple weeks prior, the person behind the Instagram account, @huntercollegeaffirmations,<\/a> hid 150 small plastic baby dolls around Hunter College\u2019s, turning the whole campus into a scavenger hunt. Perez-Hernandez\u2019s one inch tall pale-skinned baby, which she named Paula, now sits on her desk next to a frog astronaut.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The student behind the account started it as a joke, or as their account bio says, a \u201cnew coping mechanism.\u201d They asked to remain anonymous because they dislike attention. \u201cI also don\u2019t want a lot of people to bother me about the account,\u201d said the creator over Instagram direct-message.<\/p>\n

They began posting manifestations that read like inside jokes for Hunter students: \u201cThe Hunter elevators will come\u2026. eventually,\u201d<\/a> or \u201cI will find somewhere to sit that isn\u2019t on the floor of the Hunter sky bridges.\u201d<\/a> Every photo is edited the same, with a diagonal rainbow gradient and sparkles. The affirmations try to unite students over the college\u2019s quirks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing back in school after so long brings back so many frustrations so I guess it was just a way to talk about those frustrations with everyone else,\u201d wrote the account\u2019s owner over DM. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to know how many people agree with me and how many of us share these experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The account @huntercollegeaffirmations<\/a> quickly grew in popularity, amassing almost 2,000 followers since it started posting in early September. In the middle of October, followers started to come together when the student behind the account began to hide tiny plastic babies around campus. Over 40 students posted their chronicles of finding the babies on their personal Instagram accounts. And when the account posted an affirmation of \u201ci WILL find a Hunter baby,\u201d<\/a> several students commented, sharing their own attempts to find a baby.<\/p>\n

The student who runs the account never thought people would become so dedicated to it, but is thrilled with the outcome. \u201cYou can see people bring it up with people they don\u2019t seem to know,\u201d they said. \u201cAnd I think being able to see that moment where people are like \u2018Oh this is that Hunter affirmations page\u2019s things right?\u2019 and getting to strike up a conversation that way was really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cIt\u2019s honestly so much more entertaining and liberating, I find it fun that our college experience is more interactive,\u201d said freshman Emmy Seignon over Instagram DM. \u201cIt was fun to see everyone searching for those babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Word got around to the Undergraduate Student Government who reached out to the account hoping to collaborate. However the account creator is not sure if they want to. \u201cI feel like it would be dragging the concept too much,\u201d the student said.<\/p>\n

They even inspired copy cats. One October day, a reporter found a plastic roach hidden in one of the North building stairwells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hunter College students have been running around participating in a scavenger hunt that has been able to bring students together. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":4099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,324],"tags":[338,279,463,149],"class_list":["post-4088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-student-life","tag-community","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-huntercollegeaffirmations","tag-instagram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4088"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4104,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4088\/revisions\/4104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}