In his basement, surrounded by friends, Sizwe Morris-Louis spent hours having thought-provoking discussions as a child.
Morris-Louis, a senior business management major from Philadelphia, founded the community-based platform “We Just Chattin,” which grew out of the meaningful conversations he had with friends as a child.
Founded in Feb. 2026, “We Just Chattin” specializes in in-person meetings and short-form vertical video content on TikTok and Instagram.
With over 8,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, their social media presence has grown strong, with their video “Can Black people be racist?” nearly three million videos on the two social media platforms.
Originally, social media wasn’t part of the plan. Instead, “We Just Chattin” was only meant to be weekly in-person discussions among students. One of Morris-Louis’ favorite moments was their very first meeting as he saw his idea come to fruition.
“Our thought process is anything that engages the Howard community, anything that’s thought-provoking and that people would want to talk about,” Morris-Louis said.
Some of the most recent topics include wearing bonnets and pajamas on campus, artificial intelligence, policing and masculinity.
As a graduating senior, Morris-Louis wants the platform to keep building community through these discussions and hopes to expand beyond Howard to other historically Black colleges and universities.
Paris Ndakissa is a sophomore undecided major from Chevy Chase, Maryland, by way of Gabon and France, who heard about “We Just Chattin” through a friend helping with the community-based platform.
Ndakissa enjoyed that the in-person conversations were set up like the Jubilee-style YouTube videos. Jubilee creates videos that let strangers have challenging conversations in a debate-style format.
Although he has only attended a few conversations, he was able to “learn new and interesting perspectives about different subjects, and it was very enriching,” Ndakissa said.
“Some highlights for me were that I made new friends and it also helped me with my anxiety of public speaking,” Ndakissa said.
His advice for others interested in attending is to speak up and keep an open mind.
Jacob Monroe, a senior computer science major from Oakland, California, is the videographer and editor for “We Just Chattin.”
“What really drew me in to become a part of the team was seeing the passion that Sizwe had for this idea that he created,” Monroe said.
He emphasized that he only believes in doing projects that he can genuinely see himself enjoying.
“I hope that people can see this work and wanna carry the torch when we leave, and continue to create a space on campus where people can speak their minds,” Monroe said, speaking on the importance of their content.
One of his top highlights was seeing the idea come to fruition and gain traction on social media and at in-person events in a short time.
Through consistency and an increase in videos, Monroe aspires to take “We Just Chattin” to the next level.
As the school year begins, his goal is to ensure the platform can continue once both Morris-Louis and he graduate.
Copy edited by Sydney Middleton