Kate Tocke, blogger
Here at OU we feel at home. Whether you live in the luxury that is Jeff Hall or the not as luxurious dirty south, we all have our ways of making our dorm rooms feel like home. You are either the person who scatters their wall with posters or you leave them barren. There is no in between. Recently everyone at OU – and all over the internet – has seen the familiar Ohio dorm halls on their TikTok for you pages recently, and that is because OU student Stuart Landry has recently been getting tours of OU students’ dorm rooms, and the stories behind them as well. I have personally become a very huge fan of Stuart’s videos, but like many other people I began to wonder what motivated him to start making them. Last week I was able to sit down with Stuart and get the inside scoop on the OU dorm tours.
Q: Why did you start doing these videos?
A: “It was me and my friend Abby, she had just gotten a lapel mic and she was really excited. She was like ‘let’s do something,’ and we were like ‘what can we do?’ Let’s go to court street, no people have done that. But opening week we went to random dorms to say hi, just popping in.
I am an extrovert. I love talking to people. We were like ‘what if we just go to people’s dorms and just interview them?’ We got the lapel mic and the mini oscar and just went to random dorms… we didn’t really know what we were going to do or anything. So we went to the first person’s dorm and just asked for a room tour. Everything after that was all improvised. The weird questions became part of it. The first one was complete improv. We did a couple that night, edited them and posted them. People were just like, this is crazy, and so we kept on doing it.”
Q: What do you look for in a good dorm or how do you pick your dorms?
episode 3 – the boys #ohiocheck #ohiouniversity #ouohyeah #roomtour #college #collegelife #athens #ohio ♬ original sound – ouminimic
One of @ouminimic’s most popular videos
A: “Most of them are on east green because we live in east green, but mainly we were going there because it’s close. Whoever has the most decorated dorm door we pick, but other than that it’s just random. We try to evenly do boys and girls… but mainly it’s just whatever on east green. We don’t really take requests, we have done it a little bit but not really. It’s mainly just random, but if you have a cool funky door we may pick you.”
Q: Do you plan to go to west green or south soon?
A: “It is on the agenda. We have dirty south, we want to do new south. We want to do west green, we will probably do that next week. That will be our Halloween edition. On dirty south or west green.
Q: What’s hall has had the best people and overall vibe?
A: “Lincoln Hall so far is definitely the best just because they are art students, so they are really fun. They have some crazy stuff going on. It’s kind of funny. We went and interviewed Washington and Reed Hall and they weren’t as good. Lincoln Hall by far is the funniest so far because they are art students who are super fun and creative. That’s our best one.”
Q: What are some red flags you have seen in the dorms you have been in so far?
A: “I don’t know if we have seen anything bad about a dorm…I don’t think we have ever encountered anything where we are like ‘this is bad news.’ Mainly everything has been ok. Red flag, we haven’t really seen any red flags.”
Q: Since you have been touring everyone else’s room, how do you think your room compares and what does it look like?
A: “How about this, because you probably want to see my dorm. Um… if we hit 75K I will do a room tour. My room isn’t that crazy but I mean it’s clean and people are interested. 75K we will do a tour of my room. I do have a few posters, but I won’t spoil the surprise. I have some cool paintings I painted, I will say that. I also have a certain collection. An interesting collection.”