When Amelia Downs joins the class of 2014 next fall, she may well be the most recognizable person on campus without the last name Bacow or two Olympic figure skating medals on her mantle.
Downs is better known in the Tufts community as "Math Dance Girl" due to the enormously popular YouTube.com video, titled "Math Dances," that she posted in response to an optional question on the Tufts supplement that asked students to create and post online a one−minute film that "says something about you." Downs was accepted by the university, and intends to become a Jumbo in the fall.
With 127,396 views by press time, Downs' was the most−watched supplemental video of her applicant pool by a significant margin — the runner up, applicant Rhaina Cohen's video "In My Shoes," had a comparatively puny 30,918 views at press time.
Downs' viral fame (at least on the Medford/Somerville campus) started, as most cases of viral fame do, inauspiciously. Downs, who filmed the low−fi video in "a few minutes" with her best friend behind the camera, was just following the advice of her father. "When I was doing my college stuff, my dad always told me to just be memorable, to make them remember you. But in a good way, obviously," Downs said.
Downs and three or four friends, she said, had just concocted a series of about 15 tongue−in−cheek "math dances," basic movements that resembled math−related terms. For example, the motion for a line graph resembles the Electric Slide, and feverish air grabbing corresponds to a scatter plot. The moves are deliberately inelegant, though Downs is actually a trained dancer who teaches ballet during school breaks.
While perusing the optional questions in the Tufts supplemental application, Downs said the video option in particular caught her attention. "I was looking for an option that popped, and at that point the dances with my friends were a relatively new thing, so I just thought of it, and it seemed perfect," Downs said. "I just wanted to do something cute and short — something that would make them smile and remember me. Nothing too serious."
The dances did not last long as an inside joke among Downs' friends. "We tried doing calculus terms, but it's hard to do a dance for a derivative," she said.
However, the video started racking up hits "almost immediately," according to Downs. She speculates that the video, which she posted on Sept. 19 of last year, was initially the most viewed because of the title. "I was the first one that labeled mine ‘Tufts supplement,' I think. I couldn't find a single other video when I was looking for others before I made mine," Downs said.
Downs noted that she expected the video to receive around 100 to 200 views. "I was the first one up, and people would want to see what other people were doing," Downs said. However, the view count slowly grew into the four−figure range.
As the media spotlight on the concept of videos as college application supplements — a Tufts innovation — grew, so too did attention to the videos with the most hits. Then the New York Times came calling — or, rather, e−mailing.
"[New York Times writer Tamar Lewin] got in touch with me through Tufts, actually. Someone from Tufts got in touch with me and said that The New York Times wanted to contact me and if it was okay to reveal my e−mail address, and I said yes," Downs said.
Only about 130 words of the almost 1,000−word Times article on the Tufts videos were focused on her, but a link to her video was included in the online version of the story, and Downs was one of 12 Tufts applicants included in a feature on the New York Times Web site that contained the videos in embedded form.
In the two months since the article ran, Downs' view count has risen from 6,000 to its current lofty heights.
In addition to The New York Times, Downs has been featured in the Boston Globe; the Charlotte Observer, her local paper; Charlotte−area radio and television stations; and she was featured in an article and accompanying video on the ABC News Web site. Despite the media attention, Downs downplays the notion that she is now something of a local celebrity.
"It's definitely not a widespread, known fact at my school," Downs said, attributing her anonymity to the size of Myers Park High, where the student body total is close to 3,000.
Even Downs' group of friends remained unaware of the growing popularity of the video before the New York Times article. "It wasn't something I went around talking about, my college applications and stuff like that. Everyone is really stressed about college, and some [of my friends] applied to Tufts, and I just didn't want to make them uncomfortable," Downs said.
"[The day after the Times story broke,] a friend asked, ‘Did you know you were in [The New York Times]?' And I said, ‘Uh, yeah, I did,' and they said, ‘OK, that's cool.'"
Downs said that she isn't worried about losing one of college's perks: the ability to start fresh as just another anonymous face in the crowd.
"I was actually on campus visiting the Friday before Easter, and no one recognized me," Downs said. "It's just weird to think that that's what [future peers] got to see of me … I'm embarrassed, but not ashamed or anything like that. I was just in sort of an unguarded state when I filmed it. I have that same kind of humor, but I'm not quite that cheesy in real life."
Downs believes that other colleges should consider accepting videos from applicants, but that prospective students looking for potential YouTube stardom rather than an acceptance to the school of their choice should be wary. "If I was applying for next year, I would be pressured to do something or tempted to do something that would pop to The New York Times rather than to be myself. You shouldn't plan for [the video] to become a sensation. Just be yourself," Downs said.
