"Social media can go either way, and I just wasn't sure of what exactly was happening," Barlow said. "So, I needed a second to process what was going on."
The video, which lays at the syllabus for Barlow's Intro to African American studies course, was intended for the 33 students in the class.
But, it's spread much, much farther. About four million views, so far, and counting.
And it's spawned a whole movement, HillmanTok, named for Hillman College, the fictional historically Black college from the hit 90s TV show, "A Different World."
Inspired by Barlow's work Cierra Hinton, a sixth grade math teacher in Georgia, envisioned a virtual HBCU where all the educational content from Black creators in her feed could be shared in one place.
Since its inception, the #HillmanTok movement has grown exponentially in the last few weeks, offering educational content in hundreds of subjects ranging from chemistry to theology to business.
Barlow said she never intended to spark a viral movement but was happy to see the direction it was going.
"I wasn't intending for it to be that way," Barlow said. "But once I saw people really starting to want African American history, and then I saw so many other courses popping up I thought it was amazing."
First year political science student, Trinty Martin, who is in Barlow's class, said the video had gone viral before she had a chance to watch it during the first week of class. She said she discovered her professors newfound fame from a friend who went to Howard University.
"She was like a professor from A&T, your school, was going viral," Martin said. "So, I clicked on it, and I was like 'I know her, that's my professor.'"
Junior African American Studies major Sloane A. Cauthen said she had a similar experience where she didn't realize her professor had gone viral at first.
"I was doing my late-night scrolling, and I was like, 'Is this Dr. Barlow?,'" Cauthen said. "And I showed my friends her first video about the syllabus, but everyone in the comments was like, 'I'm tuning into the class. I'll be on Blackboard.'"
Junior Criminal Justice Major Brandy Walls said she was proud to see Dr. Barlow's video trending.
"I said, 'That's my professor right there,'" Walls said.
Cauthen added that the timing of the HillmanTok movement was significant following the Trump administration's efforts to peel back DEI efforts at the federal level.
"It's the perfect time," Cauthen said. "HillmanTok and Dr. Barlow are able to connect different communities together to be able to learn history that we probably never heard before."
Martin said timing of HillmanTok movement and Barlow's success was even more impressive considering TikTok recently facing being banned in the United States.
"It was banned and then a couple hours later it ended up coming back. So just to think that now right after the whole banning of it, everything's going viral with Dr. Barlow, I think it's a really amazing experience," Martin said.
All three students said this was the first time they had a professor integrate TikTok into their lessons and course material.
"It's really different, I like it," Walls said.
This is Barlow's first year teaching at N.C. A&T, but she said this wasn't the first time she had used TikTok as a teaching tool. Since her class is online, she said it was just a way for her to better connect with students.
"It was just kind of an opportunity to get some face time because we are fully online," Barlow said. "I'm not used to that. In the past I've taught high school, so I've had courses with my students and we've had great relationships so I was just looking for a way to have some of that even if we're going to be fully online."
N.C. A&T students Sloane Cauthen, Trinity Martin and Brandy Walls, who are taking Barlow's class, say they like having TikTok as part of their classes.
Some of the topics Barlow has introduced to her class through TikTok include discussing the lyrics and music video to Donald Glover's song "This is America" as well as discussing the documentary "13th" by Michelle Alexander to give a few examples.
However, following her recent success Barlow said she's had to move all course materials and videos to A&T's learning management system so the students could have their own private space free from public input.
"Love the TikTok folks, shout out to them," Barlow said. "But they [the students] needed their own."
Barlow's students said she had firmly cemented her reputation as the cool professor on A&T's campus.
"One of the coolest professors I've ever had so far," Martin said.
©2025 the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
