Highland Students and Teachers Featured On InstagRAM Accounts

It was a typical morning in 2023, when Highland freshman Georgia Hathaway was going through her daily routine of getting ready for school. She was doing her usual scrolling and eating breakfast, but today, she noticed her phone was particularly busy. Little did she know that overnight she had become an Instagram star and would appear on most Highland students’ social media feeds.
“A bunch of people started texting me about it, but it was also sent to my Instagram, and I saw it in my DMs,” Hathaway said.
What she saw was an Instagram post by the Highland ‘Barstool’ Instagram account. Part of a joke suggesting she was a hot topic among the senior boys, Hathaway was the main focus of a post that was now shared with all the followers of that account.
The original idea of a barstool account came from the mimicry of the humorous and sports-focused style of Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Instagram account. These ‘Barstool’ accounts are now commonplace for most, if not all, high schools and colleges. Run anonymously, they feature user submitted photos and videos to generate content. The accounts are in no way, shape or form affiliated with the high schools, and the content is typically meant to mock, tease and humor.
Now a junior at highland, Hathaway remembers being amused by the post.
“I thought it was funny,” Hathaway said. “I was just a freshman, so I hadn’t seen anything like that before, and I just thought it was random.”
Other people who have been featured on the account have not had the same sentiment. Senior Ella Snow was featured in a post on this year’s barstool account when a negative reference was made about her boyfriend.
“My reaction to the post was initially to be sad,” Snow said. “I don’t think it’s very fair to be posting about my personal life in a way that’s deceiving and rude and even spreading false information.”
The creator of the Highland Barstool account is unknown, and the curator of the content changes regularly with no one really knowing who is behind it. The content can be anywhere from promoting sports games to trash-talking students from other schools, and everything in between. Because of the anonymity of the account, students creating the content are protected from consequences that would normally come from making incriminating posts and commentary.
“It’s disappointing,” Highland principal Jeremy Chatterton said. “It’s really easy for students to get on and say a bunch of anonymous stuff when you know that there’s not going to be any accountability that should go with it.”
Some students feel that the Highland Barstool is not just a silly social media platform, and that it’s actually having a negative impact on the community.
“I’m not just saying that because I have been on the barstool in a negative way for no reason,” Snow said. “But when I have looked through it, I have also seen people on our own sports teams getting messed with by our barstool. I don’t think that is helping to grow our student body, it tends to actually separate us.”
This situation is a popular topic amongst high school administrators and is often discussed in regional administrator meetings. High school and district officials feel they are walking a fine line with the Barstool accounts. On one hand, Barstool posts can be damaging to the social and emotional health of the student body and so the admin want to get involved. But on the other hand, all students have freedom of speech and First Amendment rights that cannot be infringed upon.
“If it was something that was affiliated with the school, then we could better address those issues, but since it’s not, we have no official control,” Chatterton said. “The only thing we can really do is report any posts that we see are inappropriate. And we do, whenever we can.”
These barstool accounts are not the only non-school affiliated profiles that are running around Highland. “@HHSconfessions” and “@highlandhigh_tomfoolery” are two other examples of accounts that post about the happenings in Highland.
Strictly just making fun and yearning for a following, the students creating accounts like these are hoping for student engagement.
They not only target students but they also target teachers. One account in particular is run by an anonymous person but provides reviews on the teachers at Highland. Determining them good, evil, and broken, this account was noticed by the teachers and sparked some opinions.
“Because this specific account is about teachers, then I think it’s funny because all of us have thick skin. Coming into this job you have to realize you’re going to get made fun of, you’re working with teenagers,” Highland chemistry teacher Caleigh Oliver said. “It’s the ones that target students that are something way different.”
Essentially, just by typing the word ‘Highland’ into the Instagram search bar, a world of accounts are available for browsing.
“What it all comes down to, is that these students are obviously farming for engagement and rage bait,” Oliver said.
The administration monitors the Barstool account, and other school Instagram’s, to make sure they are aware of any potential danger to the student body and to make sure anyone offended by the posts has the support they need.
“If there’s something being said about you, you obviously want to know what it is,” Chatterton said, “but it’s not helping your mental health to look at those things that are being posted about you either. So, we just encourage to maybe block the accounts.”
That’s advice that most Highland students have followed.
“Truthfully, I think the barstool is dumb. But I guess other people get a kick out it so it’s whatever,” Hathaway said. “I’ve never followed any of those accounts before, and I don’t plan on ever following it.”