You may have seen them on campus interviewing people with a fishing pole, filming videos around the canal, in the stands at home games with walkie-talkies or on the court interviewing coaches: Meet UISH.
UIndy Sports Humor, or UISH, is a growing social media account on campus. Sophomore communication and political science major Chris Hammer and sophomore business administration and management major Jose Cheshier are long-time friends and the account’s founders.
As Beech Grove High School students, the pair, along with their friend Chase, created a “BG Student Hive” Instagram account. When Hammer and Cheshier realized they both chose to attend the University of Indianapolis, the concept was reignited, and UIndy SH was born. Cheshier said he considers himself on the managerial and post-production side of things while Hammer is the personality behind the account.
“One day we just decided to get Photoshop,” Hammer said. “He [Cheshier] learned a lot of the editing stuff, he was really good at that. A lot of the dynamic is kind of like I’m the guy on the camera, he’s the guy that edits a lot of the stuff. Our skills just kind of contrast each other, and that’s how it really started.”
In total, Cheshier said the group is comprised of five main members who do a variety of tasks, but each plays a role in the account’s production: Cheshier, Hammer, sophomore computer science major Badri Arul Raj, junior computer science major Martín Vizcaíno and former UIndy student Tyler Jarrett. He also said other friends help fill in when necessary. With thousands of followers between Instagram and TikTok, the duo said being full-time students typically does not conflict with managing their online presence, and, for Cheshier, it has been beneficial for him.
“You would think it’d be hard, but actually once I started running UISH, my GPA went up,” Cheshier said. “So my last semester, I had a 4.0, and I don’t know how that happened. I mean, I guess it’s not that hard. It’s healing.”
Hammer said being able to obtain official media passes and collaborate with UIndyTV have been some of the highlights of their first year, along with viral hits on TikTok and receiving positive feedback from the student body. There is not much of a process behind the content creation process, Cheshier said. Hammer said a lot of the planning happens spontaneously in a group chat with the team. Paying attention to athletic schedules and staying up-to-date on campus events also helps them create content relevant to the student body.
“… It’s always on the spot,” Cheshier said. “You give us a camera, give us a mic, put us on the field, we’ll figure it out.”
One video in particular, filmed on the football field, gained the account the most attention it has seen so far at nearly half a million views on TikTok. In the video, UIndy’s football team players shout out a local, Indianapolis Mexican restaurant, Don Juan’s, when asked which was harder: blocking a defensive lineman or deciding on what to eat.
“I think to this day it still is our most viewed and most liked content that we post across social media,” Hammer said.
For students interested in starting a social media presence of their own, the pair advised to go into it with confidence and with a team of support. Hammer said students can get involved in UISH by reaching out to the account on any of their social media platforms.
“I would say, just don’t be scared,” Cheshier said. “Maybe have a sense of community before you do something, because doing it alone, you’re going to face a lot of criticism and one ounce of disrespect, you’re just going to crumble. But if you have a team to go back to, I mean, I got to credit everything to my friends, Badri, Tyler, Martin, Corbin, Chris, all of them.”
Once Hammer and Cheshier graduate, the pair said they want UISH to live on. For Cheshier, it is about creating something bigger than himself in creating a louder voice for UIndy students. Hammer said he wants to pass the torch to another student team and does not want the account to die once he and Cheshier are gone.
“We didn’t start this page with the goal of making money or being successful,” Hammer said. “We started because it was a passion project in high school, it just went crazy. We started here because it was also a passion project. This is stuff we like to do.”
