Ustillup_yale is an Instagram account, run by a group of anonymous Yale students, known for posting screenshots of texts. These texts are usually sent by one student to another, and are what colloquially is known as “booty calls.”
YH: How did this whole thing start? What was the inspiration?
ustillup: A few of us were drunk in G Heav one night, and one of us received a booty call (booty text?), so we had the idea to create ustillup_yale to shed humorous light on the hookup culture here and at most universities. We realized that the guy who had sent the text was actually texting multiple girls at once, because two of us at the table had received a text from him. Our response, of course, was to send him a selfie of us together, exposing him as the fuckboi he truly is.
YH: What do you feel the presence of ustillup_yale is on campus?
ustillup: We can confidently say that we’re insta famous by now.
YH: What’s the gender spread in submissions? Do they come from freshman through seniors?
ustillup: In the beginning, it was mostly girls who sent in submissions. But now we would say that the posts are from an equal amount of guys and girls. We get submissions from people in all years, but most of our submissions are from sophomores and juniors. But we know that booty calling is highly concentrated on Old Campus, so we would definitely like to see more submissions from freshmen!
YH: Do you have repeat submitters?
ustillup: We have had repeat submitters, but we wouldn’t say they comprise most of the submissions.
YH: Are people who submit texts usually offended and/or annoyed?
ustillup: Definitely not, everyone who has submitted has the intention of making people laugh at the ridiculousness of the text. Sometimes the person who sent the text will end up seeing it and call out the submitter for sending us the text.
YH: Have you ever posted texts sent to you guys directly?
ustillup: Yes, a lot of the material comes from us! I think that’s what inspired us to create the account, because we had received so many absurd booty call texts.
YH: Has anyone asked to take down a post? Are some too crazy to put up?
ustillup: We’ve actually never been asked to take a post down! We think that the fact that it remains anonymous helps a lot, because the posts are just intended to make people laugh. It says a lot about the hookup culture at Yale by showing that people don’t really care if they are put on blast as long as they don’t have to claim responsibility for the booty call. No text that is submitted is too crazy for ustillup!
YH: Why do you guys do it? Is ustillup_yale a harmless comedic outlet or does it normalize drunken booty call texts?
ustillup: People outside of Yale, and the Ivy League in general, often stereotype Yale students as nerds who don’t have a great social life or sex life, but ustillup reveals that we are just normal college students, too. Even Yale students take major Ls all the time (e.g. regretting that drunken text the next morning), and it’s okay! In terms of normalizing drunken booty call texts, we think we are doing the opposite. It seems like college students have come to believe that a 2AM booty call may be their only hope for a sex life, but when you read the absurd and crazy booty call texts in the daylight, it’s hard to believe that any person would want to hook up with someone so drunk and desperate. Of course, the main reason why we post the texts is to make people laugh, but we also post them to indirectly call out the sender for their absurdity. Even though the sender doesn’t have to claim responsibility for the text on ustillup, when they see that they’ve been exposed, they have to question their actions. And we want people to know that they are not alone in their plight to subdue the booty call!
Follow @ustillup_yale on Instagram to see the action for yourself.