The opening shot of a perfume bottle cuts to a close-up of McCormick sophomore Hana Gutierrez’s eye. Then, a frame of fragrance spritz unlocks flashbacks of laughter with friends and trips into the city. Old clips play over a gentle tune.
The 33-second reel about the nostalgia of old perfume has garnered nearly 13 million views and over 1.5 million likes since Gutierrez posted it in December 2024. Thousands of viewers from India all the way to Brazil commented that they resonated with her portrayal of walking down memory lane. The video is one of many on her Instagram account, @ohnohanajo, which now has more than 320,000 followers.
Framing the road to virality
Gutierrez started posting on her account a month before her freshman year at Northwestern, but she said photography and film always fascinated her.
As a child, Gutierrez would film day-in-the-life vlogs on a battered family GoPro camera. Her dad then passed down an old Nikon DSLR camera to her, which they would take on photo excursions in their neighborhood. She vlogged school trips throughout high school, but she never saw it as anything more than a way to capture memories with friends and family.
University of Washington sophomore Nawal Ahmad, Gutierrez’s childhood best friend and first follower on her account, said she admires how comfortable Gutierrez is in front of the camera.
“When she pulled out the camera, she would prop it up, and she would have no shame about it,” Ahmad said. “And I would be like, ‘Oh, my God, people are looking.’ So at first, I was like, ‘Oh, this is so weird.’ But it was nice to know someone who is so comfortable doing something in public without caring about others’ judgment.”
As high school became increasingly busy, Gutierrez put filmmaking on the backburner. It wasn’t until the summer of 2024 when Gutierrez said she was at home in Seattle and so bored that she decided to pick up video production again. She made an Instagram account to share videos with her close friends, many of whom had left Seattle for college by then.
Gutierrez’s username, @ohnohanajo, combines her first name, middle name, Jo, and a phrase that rhymes with it. She grew up hating her middle name, but it’s grown on her as she’s gotten older, she said.
“In a way, I’m reclaiming my middle name as something that I love,” Gutierrez said. “And I was also very embarrassed to post videos where people could see it, so it’s kind of like, ‘Oh no.’”
Within months of starting her account and arriving at NU, what began as a diary for her close friends skyrocketed her to virality and fame.
Gutierrez’s first viral video was a reel introducing her love for making videos and was posted in November 2024, she said. Her follower count shot up from 100 to 30,000.
When Gutierrez’s videos blew up on the internet, her parents were “floored,” her dad Robert Gutierrez said.
“We were just blown away at how those numbers were just ticking and ticking,” he said. “It never ceases to amaze us.”
Behind the lens
Gutierrez described her ideas as “very everyday.” Whether it’s about the itch to get a haircut or a voice memo from a friend, her story ideas come from day-to-day observations and experiences. Sometimes, visual concepts come to her when she’s listening to music.
She said she has tried to streamline her ideation process, but inspiration still strikes when she least expects it.
“I’ve tried finding a formula, to put this down to a science and get ideas,” Gutierrez said. “And it never works. Usually, my best ideas kind of come out of nowhere.”
Once she’s settled on an idea, Gutierrez said she writes out a script and listens to the accompanying music, paying close attention to the rhythm and how each beat falls.
Then, she ventures out to film with a Sony Alpha 6400 camera, a gift from her father and grandfather.
Each video usually takes Gutierrez under two hours to finish. Her editing style is simple, with clean cuts between transitions, she said. Rather than fancy post-production work, the narration and the shots do the heavy lifting.
Gutierrez mostly films alone, but she said she has trained some of her close friends to use a camera. Weinberg sophomore Maha Somji, who met Gutierrez during the first week of their freshman year, said Gutierrez will often ask to bring her camera when they’re hanging out.
Somji found out about Gutierrez’s content because her reels popped up on Somji’s feed. Since then, she’s helped with filming and recorded voiceovers in videos.
“I think there were at least 10 different times where she thought she was done growing,” Somji said. “Then a video went even more viral, she gained even more followers, and it was really cool to see her realize that a lot of people like and watch her videos.”
As her page gained traction, Gutierrez celebrated milestones with friends on campus. When Gutierrez hit 100,000 followers during the school year, her friends planned a picnic at the Lakefill with pizza and cake, Somji said. When the number doubled over the summer, she sent Gutierrez a cookie cake to celebrate.
Staying focused: Balancing work, life and school
Beyond sky-high numbers on the screen, Gutierrez said her content has granted her opportunities for personal and professional growth. In 2025, she engaged in brand partnerships with Claude by Anthropic, camera brand DJI and Adobe.
Gutierrez also found a community of content creators she can relate to through attending in-person conferences around the country, she said.
Even though Gutierrez missed several classes and took an Engineering Analysis exam immediately after returning from a film festival featuring content creators in Texas, she said she would “do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Meeting people who were doing the same thing as me and who were so cool, smart and creative was amazing,” Gutierrez said. “Finally, I was in a place where everyone was just like me, but in the best way possible.”
At NU, Gutierrez takes elective classes in radio, television and film. Beyond that, she’s mostly taking classes for her major in industrial engineering.
Gutierrez is pursuing a concentration in product management where she said she sees the most room for creativity.
“I do enjoy engineering as a more technical thing that I can focus on while I’m doing all this other stuff that’s so dynamic,” she said. “As I keep going forward with social media, hopefully at some point those two lines will merge where I can do something there.”
Gutierrez used to post almost daily, but it became unsustainable, she said. Now, she posts once or twice a week and took a break when school started to avoid burning out. She also has a manager overseeing brand deals and advising her content, alleviating some of her stress. To pursue physical activity during the week, she joined the rock climbing club, where she also spends time with friends.
While Gutierrez said the response from her followers has been “overwhelmingly positive,” internet fame doesn’t come without side effects.
She said she receives direct messages on Instagram daily, many of which make her feel uncomfortable. On one occasion, an impersonator created an Instagram account with her name and face to get her attention, which Meta took down shortly after.
“Part of the reason I got so overwhelmed when I first blew up was because there were a lot of creeps in my DMs. And I think that’s just a function of being a girl on the internet,” Gutierrez said. “The block button is there for a reason.”
Gutierrez said she maintains a personal distance from her audience for her safety as people have gone through lengths to dig up information about her.
However, she said she still ensures that her authentic personality shines through in her content and that audiences can connect with her through universal experiences.
“If someone really wants to know the type of person I am, I think they just have to look on there,” Gutierrez said. “The only difference is maybe I sound a little more wise in my videos.”
A snapshot of the future
Gutierrez’s work as a content creator opened the door for her summer internship, when she worked in Los Angeles at a job she got through a connection from the film festival in Texas. When she wasn’t working on marketing campaigns for Stan, a startup that supports content creators, she met up with fellow creators and shot concerts with friends.
Born from her love for storytelling, Gutierrez also started her own magazine. Whether it’s her love for froyo or song recommendations on the “disco hanajo” page, she shares an extended cut of her content with nearly 1,000 subscribers on Substack. She also started accepting submissions from friends and viewers to feature alongside her own art and writing.
The magazine’s name, “Okay. Bye Bye,” comes from a phrase she uses colloquially and to conclude each of her videos. What started as a throwaway line to end videos in her early scriptwriting days became her signature expression, she said.
“One time I made a video without it because I just forgot to, and people were like, ‘Where is it?’” she said. “I make sure to include it now, and I think it’s become almost like a trademark. I’m glad it makes it easy to end videos.”
Aside from posting on Instagram, Gutierrez also uploads her videos to TikTok and YouTube. But, she sees short-form content as a stepping stone to breaking into long-form content, where she has more room to be creative and experimental, she said.
While Gutierrez chose to pursue engineering in college instead of filmmaking, her content creation has put her back on a path to chasing her artistic dreams.
“The North Star, the biggest dream,” Gutierrez said, “would be to be able to do creative things for the rest of my life.”
Email: [email protected]
X: @laurenhykee
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