🧑‍🎓📲 New college major: Influencing!?

🌶 Want free tickets to Boston’s spiciest day? The Boston Hot Sauce Festival is giving away 200 free tickets to each session of their May 9 event at The Foundry. Use code FreeTixBSide at checkout — limit two tickets per person while supplies last. Book here!

🎉 Happy birthday to B-Side Member Jakob O’Meara-Gill. We hope your b-day is HOT … if you’re into that!

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Local college students are majoring in influencer studies. Some of today’s most successful influencers can be found on college campuses, where students are turning their social media hobby into a six-figure side hustle, according to the Globe.

Here’s what to know: 

📲 College students are taking over TikTok. From studytok to student-athletes to rushtok and even looksmaxxers, students are responsible for a huge chunk of the $205 billion creator economy (which is expected to grow to $1.35 trillion by 2033). In fact, Syracuse University is currently building a Center for the Creator Economy to train the next generation of content creators. Among the most successful: Gen Z women making “day in the life” content.

🙋🏻‍♀️ See: Amherst student Grace Nah. The 20-year-old has built an audience of over 400,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram showing her day-to-day life as a student. Since her first videos in 2024, Nah has secured major deals with brands like Adobe, Grammarly, and Tinder, which have covered her entire college tuition (and then some). Now in her sophomore year, she’s “completely financially independent.”

🧑‍🎓 Campuses are the perfect influencer launchpad. After all, being a student comes with a built-in niche and interested audience: Prospective students. When Nah launched her accounts, “my big strategy was using the college name — because high school students are always searching up, ‘What does a day in the life of a student at this college look like?’” she said. In some cases, schools have even started re-sharing videos of their student-influencers. Amherst President Michael A. Elliott follows Nah himself.

🤝 The secret sauce: Relatability. Nah views her accounts as “a connection tool,” where she can showcase both sides of her college experience to help students feel less lonely. Think: bad test scores, financial aid worries, and stress over picking a major. In a moment where brands are banking less on viral moments and more on “people who have built sustainable community,” as Nah’s manager, Cassandra Couwenberg said, that kind of intimate content is a winning bet.

😮‍💨 But don’t get it twisted … it’s not an easy gig. Despite the brand trips and paychecks, balancing a full-time job with a full-time class schedule can be rough. Nah often works until midnight, and hasn’t been to the gym in a month — not to mention being made fun of by fellow students. “I’m constantly crying, like, ‘Why am I even doing this?’” she said. But in true influencer form, she’s turned the criticism into content.

🤳 Want to know more? You can read the Globe’s full story here. 

⚠️ PSA: We’re entering our Storrow Drive shutdown summer. Starting May 11, MassDOT is ramping up its overnight, partial Storrow Drive closures to seven nights a week while workers repair the Storrow Drive tunnel. That means, Storrow Drive eastbound and Soldiers Field Road eastbound will be closed every single night from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. between North Harvard Street to Mugar Way through … August. The good news: There will be detours, and MassDOT plans to keep roads open for big concerts and games.

🏘️ Friendly reminder: You probably can’t afford a house in Boston. The Globe just dropped a housing calculator that shows where you can afford a home in Mass. Just input your annual income, interest rate, and down payment, and the calculator will spit out which towns you can afford (the formula makes a few assumptions, like zero debt and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage). Warning: The results may give you a stomach ache — with an average interest rate and a $50,000 down payment, Gia can afford a home … nowhere!  

🏒 Petition for the Boston Fleet to play at TD Garden again! The Fleet are Boston’s last playoff team standing after last weekend’s one-two punch, which has led to some rumblings about whether they could bring a game to the Garden. After all, the Fleet, which is packed with Olympic-level talent, had no trouble selling out TD in April (see: this 17,000+ crowd!). While the team and stadium told the Globe they’re open to it, nothing is confirmed. The next (potential) home game is May 12. Our two cents: DO IT!

🤤 We’re eating GOOD this month. Today in local restaurant openings: Alice & Monarch, a stunning Italian restaurant with a basement cocktail and dessert bar(!) opens Friday in Kendall Square; the Speedway’s Rite Tea & Espresso Bar has expanded and rebranded to Linger, a matcha-heavy all-day cafe; and finally, Janz Kitchen, responsible for these viral Ilocos empanadas, is back, vending from Malden’s Townline Luxury Lanes for dine-in on Tuesdays, and pre-order on Fridays and Saturdays. Peep some other hot openings this month here!

Looking to give back and get outside this summer? Do both with Wilderness Heals, an all-women pledge hike in New Hampshire's White Mountains. Join us from July 17-19 for a one- or three-day hike to raise $200,000 for Stone House and domestic violence survivors.

Learn more and sign up!

What do Back Bay, Fenway, and Seaport all have in common? “The.” Or, the lack thereof.

For some Boston neighborhoods, it’s obvious: The North End, the South End, and the West End need a “the” before them. But what about Back Bay, Fenway, or Seaport? Are you grabbing drinks in “the Back Bay” or “Back Bay”? 

If you ask someone on the street, they’ll probably say, drop the “the.” But data from Google Books shows a more even split. Some old timers and language enthusiasts say adding a “the” “signals something special and unique.”

But despite what Google (or neighborhood signage) says, linguists say it’s often the residents who call the shots. “Young people … are kind of a dynamo of linguistic change,” BC linguistics professor Margaret Thomas told the Globe.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🔤 Thanks for reading! Gia’s going to start telling people she’s going to “the Brighton” when she leaves work.

📝 Correction: We’ve updated the newsletter to reflect that Alice & Monarch is in Kendall Square, not Harvard Square. It’s sibling, Source, is the one in Harvard Square!

🚴 The results are in: 42% of B-Siders say they don’t like to bike around Boston. One reader said: “I'm afraid to die.” Hard to argue with that!

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