Athena Miranda Nguyen

This is the story of a girl who met the internet before consciousness, and long division.

Disclaimer: Listen, my parents are young and hip. My brother is a rockstar. Of course, I turned out cool and overexposed. Dare I consider myself, an original iPad kid?

I majored in Communications with a concentration in Public Relations, and it was one of the best pre-frontal lobe decisions I ever made. How did I land there? Well, it started when I was 6 years old posting political think pieces and girls2games.com screenshots on Facebook. Then, I moved on to Instagram where I discovered the selfie at age 9. On to Tumblr, Twitter and Snapchat when I was 11 and finally, VidCon. 

VidCon is a convention hosted in Southern California to highlight everything social media, and then some. From the ages of 13 to 17, VidCon was my summer camp. It was my precursor to the wild world of networking. When TikTok took off in 2019, it altered the integrity of John and Hank Green’s convention. The formal coordination was abandoned when faces that were fresh off the For You Page accumulated crowds outside of the convention. Taking advantage of the loose structure and casual meetings, I connected with as many people as I could. We produced so much content featuring timely trends with spontaneous collaborations at events hosted by different companies. It was so much fun, and I learned enough about the media industry motions to love it. That summer clarified my future career’s potential, right in time for college applications. 

Since then, I’ve learned a bit more to know that I have a deeper appreciation for brand partnerships and experience coordination. That in itself describes so many roles and responsibilities. The type-A personality of mine can’t help but plan and do. So, that’s me for now. What about you?