This girl dropped out of Temple and is now on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list
Quinta Brunson dropped out of Temple and became a development partner at BuzzFeed
Forbes just announced their 2017 list of 30 under 30 Hollywood and Entertainment and a former Temple University student and Philadelphia native, Quinta Brunson, was featured on the prestigious list.
After dropping out of Temple, Quinta became a development partner with BuzzFeed, where she’s now creating shows like Broke, which has over a million views.
Although she dropped out, she proves not everyone needs a college degree to be successful. Even Oprah dropped out of college to pursue her career in media, which is what Quinta did herself when she left Temple.
In an Cosmopolitan interview, Quinta explains how she became a viral star on BuzzFeed and how she eventually left Temple University to pursue her dream.
“When I was in college at Temple University in Philadelphia, I became obsessed with Saturday Night Live and The Office. I thought the writing and performing was amazing, and I wanted to figure out how to do that. So I started researching everyone on those shows. That’s when I found out about The Second City in Chicago,” she told Cosmopolitan.
However, her grades took a tumble as she would take full weeks off of school and her parents wanted her to finish her degree and find a practical job. Quinta would soon take the semester off and take a job at the Apple store.
After three months, Quinta went back to Philadelphia and she would soon find out that she lost a bunch of credits and finishing school just didn’t seem reasonable. She made a plan to work at the Apple store in Philly for a couple of months to save money, and then move out to L.A.
Once she moved into L.A. she worked on small gigs and one day joking around with her friend, she made a viral video that would help her realize creating videos was something she wanted to do. Quinta created her own video series “The Girl Who’s Never Been on a Nice Date” and started to gain a social media presence.
Once she was invited to do a taste test video for BuzzFeed from a friend, Quinta realized she loved what they were doing and wanted to work there.
“The more time I spent there, the more it felt like BuzzFeed was the place I wanted to be. I loved the open creative space full of collaborators. And so many of the videos the creators were making were changing people’s perceptions. For example, one creator did a video called ‘If Black People Said the Stuff White People Say.’ It was so simple and smart. I wanted to do the same kind of perspective-bending videos,” she told Cosmopolitan.
After being offered a job as a junior producer, she found the creative freedom she desired and created several videos for BuzzFeed that went viral. After a year Quinta spoke to her boss about her idea of creating Broke.
She was signed on to become a development partner, which meant BuzzFeed bought her as a creator. She became a full partner in all of her content she created and profited from it being sold or distributed.
Once the show became a hit, there were talks to sell a full season of Broke. She eventually sold the show to Youtube Red in April and she felt proud to be part of the movement she wanted to tell in Hollywood with a show that featured three black characters.
“The best feeling was that I became part of the movement that will push new narratives into Hollywood. A lot of things people are upset about or frustrated by with Hollywood stem from the fact that the same old narrative is being sold over and over again. That’s because there aren’t people of color or young people as showrunners, writers, and producers,” she told Cosmopolitan.
Quinta Brunson is proof to all Temple students that Temple Owls are truly everywhere.