Creative kidnapping story spurs Snapchat fame

A Snapchat story depicted two students in De Neve Gardenia being kidnapped during finals week of winter quarter.

Improvised as a sequence of 10-second Snapchat stories, the fictional narrative of the two students compelled followers of the UCLA campus Snapchat story to drag down the refresh button and find out what would happen next.

This was the first moment third-year psychology student Patrick Hernandez-Ball secured thousands of views on the UCLA campus Snapchat story.

Over the year, Hernandez-Ball said he has been featured in about 40 campus stories for his storytelling, free-style rapping and singing, all of which he comes up with spontaneously. Each receives about 5,000 views on average, he said.

Hernandez-Ball said he uses Snapchat as an outlet to express himself and connect with the UCLA student body.

“The kidnapping story was the big crazy thing that started it all,” Hernandez-Ball said.

For the kidnapping plot, Hernandez-Ball and his friend Nina Amoranto, a third-year political science student, ran down the halls of Gardenia disguised in baseball caps and sunglasses to escape a kidnapper loose in the building. Hernandez-Ball was kidnapped and eventually escaped, and later Amoranto was kidnapped. The stories ended there, which left viewers with a cliff-hanger yet to be resolved, as Amoranto was never rescued.

Quickly after the UCLA campus story featured the videos, students posted to the app Yik Yak, urging users to watch the story and creating hashtags like #SavePatrick, Hernandez-Ball said.

“My name really got out there from that, and I became more of a person rather than just a face,” Hernandez-Ball said. “After that I would be at Rendezvous or Bruin Café and people would record me over my shoulder and say things like ‘Look it’s Patrick, I found him!’”

First-year psychology student Julia Reitsma recognized Hernandez-Ball outside her class one day and introduced herself to him. She said the long thought process he goes through to come up with his snaps are what make them successful.

“People feel as if he is a UCLA celebrity,” Reitsma said. “They all turn heads when they see him and whisper, ‘Hey that’s that Patrick guy from the UCLA story.'”

The kidnapping series was not the first time he was featured on the UCLA campus Snapchat story.

The first time was when Hernandez-Ball and his roommate, third-year economics student Gus Pamungkas, drove to the Westwood In-N-Out. The two freestyle rapped throughout the entire car ride, and Patrick decided to rap his order once he got to the drive-thru window. Pamungkas recorded it on Snapchat, and the two decided to submit the video to the UCLA Snapchat story. It made the cut.

“This planted the idea in my head that I could rap and make it on the Snapchat story,” Hernandez-Ball said.

Hernandez-Ball said the campus story’s recent addition of daily and weekly filters guide his story ideas for a certain day. On Monday, the filter “campus cook-off” led him to follow the theme: “Ballin’ on a Budget.” During his study break, he eyed his desk and found hot Cheetos, a Nature Valley bar and a blue raspberry Airhead. He jokingly instructed students how to make a meal with things lying around by combining the foods together, which ended up making the story.

Hernandez-Ball had to make the entire video all in one take because he was breaking the food apart, he said.

“If something comes to mind that I think is funny, I just go with the idea and make a video about it,” Hernandez-Ball said.

Unlike other social media personalities that plan their content ahead of time, Hernandez-Ball said he comes up with his material on the spot.

Snapchat is a way for him to express what he finds personally funny or compelling. Hernandez-Ball often records videos and sends them to his friends via Snapchat and simultaneously submits them to the UCLA campus story, he said.

Pamungkas has been close friends with Hernandez-Ball since community college, and said he has always expressed himself through different media like Instagram.

“I always knew he had a knack of expressing himself, but I’m glad to see his passion crossed with these funny things people enjoy seeing,” he said.

Although Hernandez-Ball does not plan on transforming his social media fame into a career, he hopes to keep it as a hobby, he said.

“My Snapchats are really me just doing what I have always enjoyed doing,” Hernandez-Ball said. “I just have gotten recognition for it.”