Riley Ruberton is a typical Penn State sophomore. Residing from New Jersey, she’s studying advertising and goes to class every day.

She also has over 137,000 followers on TikTok.

Ruberton has been on TikTok for a long time, casually posting for years. But in December 2022, over Christmas break, she decided to start taking it more seriously. She was putting in hours upon hours of time and effort and nothing was working. That was until she posted a care package she got from her mom.

“I came back to school after Christmas break, and I posted my first video opening one of my mom’s care packages, which I had been getting all year since September. For whatever reason, I decided to post it this time, and it blew up,” Ruberton said.

That video garnered over 2 million views and over 400,000 likes, raising Ruberton from three thousand to eight thousand followers in just the first week of her second semester of college.

From there, she continued to post, sharing her journey rushing a sorority, which pushed her and made her realize this is something she can take seriously.

As her platform grew, so did the attention she got from others. Just before spring break that March, she had around 20,000 followers. Ruberton received a message from Penn State’s socials, asking her to do a video tying back to Penn State. They decided to post a video from Penn State’s account of Ruberton packing to head back from spring break while talking about her freshman year.

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“That was my first time that I did anything with like a big brand. I mean, it wasn’t really an ad or anything like that, but it was the first time that I had worked with a brand. So that was cool that it was Penn State,” Ruberton shared.

All of last spring semester, her followers skyrocketed, hitting roughly 50,000 in roughly five months.

Most of Ruberton’s content is college-related, from the care packages to sorority rush to day-in-the-life videos to sharing college advice. With her demographic being mostly high school- and college-aged girls and their moms, it is the perfect audience to share these four years with.

Her advice videos really started when she was lost during her first semester and wasn’t feeling the best about college. But in those situations, it was easy to feel alone and too scared to bring it up to new friends in case they weren’t feeling the same way. Ruberton told her TikTok so that they know it gets better and everyone feels that way and has gotten many positive messages about it helping others.

While her care package videos are still the biggest, inspiring many more college students, sometimes random videos blow up and give Ruberton more fame outside of college.

“There was an Old Navy haul that was literally showing three plain tank tops that I got for $3,” she said. “The video has almost 3 million views for absolutely no reason. It had nothing to do with my usual content, I just simply didn’t have something to post that day.”

Ruberton has gotten brand deals through her TikTok, joining the Her Campus Trendsetters Program where she gets set some brand deals and getting some of her own including Nars, Kendra Scott, and Go Puff here on campus.

@rileycatharine

the way they’re all so perfect #sorority #sororitymerch #sororityjewelry #jewelry #kendrascott #kspartner #ksgem #phisig #phisigmasigma #litp #sororitygirl #sororitygift #collegetok #rushtok #momtok #fyp #trending #viral @Kendra Scott

♬ original sound – riley ruberton

With her large amount of followers, Ruberton earned some mini-fame on campus as people will come up to her sharing how they love her TikTok or even trying to sneak photos of her. Sometimes, Ruberton is out with friends or trying to get work done and people will act shocked to see in person.

“I don’t mind when people see me and recognize me. Who doesn’t want somebody to come up and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I love you’? But you can’t restrict yourself from going out. If people look at me and they see me, and they come up to me like, great. But I’m not going to stop doing things,” Ruberton said.

TikTok has opened up many opportunities for Ruberton, both on and off campus.

She is the Director of Outreach for REACH, a social media club on campus. She tries to secure brand deals for current members, recruit new members, and constantly has members coming up to her for advice on how to grow their brands.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s office reached out to Ruberton to become a student influencer for them, despite that she’s from New Jersey.

“Basically what I do is they send us out bi-weekly check-ins and all the things that he’s doing. I don’t have to do anything political because I’m not trying to get involved in that, but I’ll basically send them ideas and trends to do,” she said.

However, the coolest opportunity Ruberton said she’s received so far, especially as a huge sports fan, was to go to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. She got a message from the Pirates, inviting her to their annual THON game and a link to sell tickets for commission. As someone who wants to work in gameday experiences for sports, this was a huge accomplishment for her.

“I got two field passes, but I ended up being able to bring my whole family and we went on the field for the pregame and got VIP seating. And that was the coolest thing ever, getting to go to the Pirates and talk to the girl there, who literally does exactly what I want to do. That was definitely the best experience, because not only was it what I want to do with my career, but it was just so cool,” Ruberton said.

Besides the physical opportunities she has received, Ruberton has gotten to experience the support of the Penn State community and build one of her own.

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“I think the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of it is community and the community that I’ve built,” she said. “I felt like I was really alone within my first semester. I was the only person who was feeling really upset and lonely and lost because I was scared to talk about it with friends because I only knew them for two weeks.

“So I feel like the community that I built has become a safe space for me to just come and vent, and other people will message me and be like, ‘Oh, I was struggling with the same things’ or, ‘My daughter’s been having the same problems and I’m sending her your videos.'”

With more followers than most students at University Park, Ruberton gets stares sometimes but also finds support just walking around campus or downtown.

“I had 50, maybe 60,000 when I left school at the end of the year, and then when I came back, I had over 100,000,” Ruberton said. “Coming back from summer was a big adjustment, because there were a lot more eyes on me than there were before, and a lot of the freshman specifically, so that was different.

“But it’s also nice because I love seeing people watch my videos because sometimes I’m just so burnt out and have no ideas of things to post. And then I see people be like, ‘I love your videos.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, so I can do this.’ So I feel like the Penn State community too has helped a lot.”

Ruberton will continue posting on TikTok and growing her audience, with more college content, posting about days in the life, and especially monthly care packages in the future.