She’s the girl who you see fly past you on her- what is that? A Razor scooter? Yes – it is the original Scooter Girl, who gets from class to class at UMass Amherst on her Razor scooter. If you haven’t seen her in person, you’ve definitely seen her on all your social media platforms, from the popular anonymous Yik Yak app, to the newest picture app, Fade. She’s trended in the top Yik Yaks almost daily and has had countless “ups” and “likes,” simply for riding around on her scooter. But who really is this infamous Scooter Girl everyone on campus is talking about?
Her name is Stelliana Benson, but she admits most people just call her Scooter Girl when she rides or carries around her scooter and was not even aware of the nickname until someone showed her the Yik Yak app. The biggest part of the “Scooter Girl” persona was being all over the internet, easily accessible for fellow students to anonymously post about her riding around campus. “I’m not riding my scooter for attention, it just gets me to class faster than walking,” Stelliana says.
“Random people will come up to me and say, ‘Wait, are you Scooter Girl?’ Even people I live next to call me Scooter Girl when they actually know me by my real name,” Stelliana says. “I just needed a way of getting around, I would have brought a bike but that takes more time to lock it up and isn’t that the point of getting places quicker and more convenient? I would ride a longboard but I’m not that hip.”
However, Stelliana is a normal, funny, easy going freshman on campus who enjoys singing and maintaining a vegetarian lifestyle. “I love the atmosphere here at UMass Amherst,” she said. She also noted she really doesn’t mind the hill in Central, even though she can’t scooter up it. If you don’t already see it on Yik Yak, you can find Stelliana taking her scooter to her favorite classes, such as Nutrition and Economics. She aspires to travel the world in the Peace Corps after she graduates with a degree in Business Management.