Amy Foley is a sophomore from Lake Forest, Ill. majoring in health and exercise science. She manages RedCup Wake, an Instagram humor account affiliated with RedCup News. Though her focus is on sports content, the account has expanded to cover almost every aspect of campus life. Foley plans to grow the RedCup Wake brand, all while giving students a good laugh.

How did you begin your partnership with RedCup?

To be honest, I was bored over quarantine and over Christmas break. I follow a bunch of sports accounts, and it came up. RedCup ACC was looking for someone to run a couple of their accounts. I felt like I might as well direct message them and give it a shot. I interviewed with someone who runs one of the other RedCup accounts, and it just started from there.

What inspired you to start the account at Wake Forest University?

My brother ran a meme account for our high school, and he always had a lot of fun doing it. RedCup is kind of a different vibe,  just because it is more sports-related and not solely about memes, and I’ve always been into sports. My mom, who went to Duke, told me about camping out for basketball games and stuff like that, and I also played tennis in high school. I feel like it’s something fun and related to what I’m passionate about.

How do you come up with content?

Most of the ideas are either something that I’ve seen online — based on some sort of meme format that’s going around — or a topic I want to cover. I normally create the post and then send it to two of the other people who help me run RedCup Wake: the person who runs the Twitter account and the person who runs the TikTok account. I usually send it to them before I post anything.

How much time do you dedicate to working on the account?

I would say it depends on what I am trying to do. Usually video content takes longer, but I’d say close to three hours a day. It depends on how long I spend making the content and then doing giveaways and polls. That takes time as well.

What specific giveaways have you arranged?

We have done giveaways with Yamas, WakeWare and Good Uncle. If there are any other Wake organizations or Winston-Salem based brands that want to partner with us in the future, I’d be excited to do something like that.

Do you know of anyone else who has partnerships with RedCup?

My two closest friends are a guy who runs RedCup Canes at the University of Miami and the guy who runs RedCup at Colorado State University. We all do a podcast together called “RedCup Rants,” and they help me with a lot of content, especially with editing videos. I think the podcast is super cool. I didn’t really think that doing a podcast was for me or that my personality fit. I feel like I make a fool of myself, but it’s fun at the same time, at least once you get the hang of it.

How do you execute the podcasts?

We do the podcasts as a group, so we schedule times to make them. Our first one was on the Super Bowl, and our second was on cringy Tinder stories. I record in my room. As we grow, hopefully we can meet up in person without COVID-19, but as of now, I record in my dorm room.

What are some of the topics you’ve discussed on your podcasts?

We went to the COVID-19 protests about the resident advisers receiving hazard pay, and that informed me on the issue. The university had not made it known that resident advisors were delivering food when we were close to going into red status. Recently, we did St. Patrick’s Day interviews, and that was kind of hard just because it wasn’t a very nice day out. But overall, it turned out to be fun, especially going around campus and seeing people I knew or seeing people I didn’t. It’s really fun.

Is it difficult to balance managing RedCup with the rest of your day?

It is something I really enjoy. I think it’s fun, so it’s not necessarily work. It is a job, but I have fun while doing it. One of my closest friends runs the TikTok, so when we come up with ideas together it’s super fun. It’s not like we’re working — we’re just making jokes that we normally make.

Is your experience with RedCup Wake something you would put on your resume?

I would like to. We’re hoping to grow bigger. I know some of the bigger accounts for RedCup Georgia and RedCup Arkansas have a huge following, so that would be my goal for RedCup Wake. In the future, I’d like to do something in sports. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed it until I started doing it.

What career do you want to pursue in the future?

I’d like to be on the sports marketing side of things, being able to set up experiences for fans or covering events, no matter what sport. I know how to get people to come to things; using humor to do that is one good way.

What has RedCup Wake taught you about yourself?

It’s taught me to be more confident in myself. I feel like I wrote stuff in high school, but I never did plays and I was always afraid of public speaking. Meeting all these new people — some who don’t go to Wake Forest — has helped me come out of my shell and helped me realize that I am (hopefully) funny. Also, it has kind of given me a direction for my career. I’ve switched all over the place. When I first came to Wake Forest, I was in political science, then biology, and now I am an HES major. I never quite knew what I wanted to do, I just always knew I wanted to do something with athletics or health or something like that. This gives me a specific thing or a niche aspect that I am interested in.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.