A new Ryerson social media group, RU_inlove, was on campus Tuesday and Thursday asking students about their love lives and looking for those wanting a hand to hold during the holidays.
“We thought, what would be fun? What do people want to hear about? What do people sometimes like to talk about?” said Anna Sawchuk of the group. “We (said) dating, love – it’s basically promoting the dos and don’ts of dating, what people’s ideal dates are, and where they found love.”
Cecilia Di Vito, Teresa Chan and Anna Sawchuk are three of the four students running the social media campaign RU_inlove. (Rebecka Calderwood / Ryersonian Staff)
Sawchuk, Cecilia Di Vito, Teresa Chan and Chelsea Kostrey are the love gurus behind the heart-y campaign. It all started as an assignment for a professional communications class. The task was to create a campaign and successfully use social media to create, maintain and sustain community involvement.
RU_inlove officially began Nov. 10, but caught attention on social media – specifically Instagram – the weekend before.
“By asking people, it might bring people out of their comfort zone,” said Di Vito. “But I think that’s a good thing, because people do take love really seriously but we’re all still young. It should be really fun. It should be approachable and you should feel comfortable, so (it’s) just bringing that silliness out.”
But the group had trouble finding people willing to open up – to them and to those they admire.
“A lot of the people we talked to we found – that haven’t been on dates yet – said they were just nervous to approach people. It was nerves that took over when we asked, ‘why didn’t you ask the girl you liked?’ or ‘why didn’t you ask the boy you liked?’ So we just want to open it up and have fun with it,” said Sawchuk.
The group members weren’t sure if they would keep the campaign running after the class was over.
“Right now it’s just for our school project,” said Chan. “It’s getting pretty fun, so if it does actually get a lot of hits and it does become something, we might continue it.”
Sawchuk agreed the campaign could turn into an ongoing Ryerson student-run social media account.
The group said that most past campaigns in the class did not continue after the week ended, but on Nov. 22 the group announced on its Twitter account they would continue the campaign the following week.
RU_inlove speaks with students on campus about dating horror stories, first dates, and more. (Rebecka Calderwood / Ryersonian Staff)
“If there’s a lot of engagement we’re going to keep it going. I don’t think there’s a reason to delete it once the week is over. People seem to like it so far.”
With the holiday season underway, RU_inlove said they thought it would be a good time to spread some love.
It’s asking students to send anonymous messages to someone they love, so it can post student love letters on social media platforms and around campus.
Rebecka Calderwood was a reporter and the Arts & Life editor for The Ryersonian. In the past she's worked for Toronto music blogs Anchor Shop and livemusicTO and the CBC Manitoba. She's defined by the people she's met, places she's been and things she's experienced. Find her on social media for all of the above.
Rebecka graduated from the Ryerson School of Journalism in 2015.
– @persbecktives.
