If you follow Leslie “Jay” Hosteen on social media, you might wish you could meet him in person, be his friend, join his extensive family and live, as he does, a simple yet magical life on the Navajo Reservation.

If you’re a fan of Jay Hosteen on Tik Tok or @jayhosteen on Instagram, you probably already feel like you know him personally. That’s because the Yavapai College alumnus, Navajo native, fourth-grade teacher, husband and father of four shares his life -- the joys, the challenges, the beauty and the bewilderment – all with a positive and comic bent – with thousands of people across the globe every day.

 “Social media creation is my stress reliever. It helps me take my mind off things that would bother me or keep me up at night. I also have established a great community online that comments positive things that keep me motivated. In a way I reciprocate that energy,” Jay said, explaining why “I put myself out there.”

And, as his Instagram profile professes, Jay “loves making people laugh.”

Sometimes a song on the radio will inspire Jay to create. Sometimes, it’s a seemingly mundane activity like a Costco run. Often, it’s something one of his seven siblings, his uncles, aunties or even the former president of the Navajo Nation, Jonathan Nez, says, does or experiences that will prompt him to grab his phone and start videotaping and tapping out captions.

Jay started making Tik Tok reels three years ago, dared by a student that he couldn’t get 100 followers. Today, his account boasts nearly 50,000 followers. On Instagram, where he is creating more original content these days, his following has grown to upwards of 10,000. A number of his Several of his short, witty, smile-inducing videos have gone viral, garnering a million or more views.

Jay’s latest gem on Instagram: He’s modeling a new Phoenix Suns jersey in his kitchen. The clip’s caption reads:  “When you’re excited to wear your new Suns jersey and your 3-year-old gives you a compliment, ‘wow Dad, I really like your basketball dress.’ With that, Jay stops pacing, moves directly into the camera with a swarthy expression and a new caption appears. “Whatever it still looks cool.”

His latest Tik Tok has him on the floor, rolling himself up in a wide swath of wrapping paper to Mariah Carey’s iconic carol, “All I Want for Christmas is You.” The onscreen caption reads “wrapping my co-workers’ Christmas presents like…” The post caption says, “I think it’s the best Christmas present ever.”

Success. Jay has made thousands of people smile today. The cheer will grow exponentially as these video slices of life show up in social media feeds. And those happy people likely will be looking for Jay to make them laugh again tomorrow.  He’ll be on it.

Jay attributes his social media success to being real, being silly and sparking fascination among the masses about life on the Navajo reservation.  Yes, he’s been asked online if he lives in a tepee.

“I use Tik Tok to show people this is my reservation. This is what it looks like. This is my culture… we’re still here,” he said. Marriage, fatherhood, teaching and homesteading also provide plenty of fodder for Jay’s prolific social media presence. “(Social media) gives me a little a little community of people to hang out with,” he said. “Maybe sometimes people are in dark places. Just that little giggle will get them out of there.”

Ironically, Jay wasn’t always so gregarious and self-assured. Growing up isolated from the outside world, in a tiny hogan with no electricity or running water, left him quiet and reserved as a child, he said. He credits his three-year journey through Yavapai College, in part, for bringing him out of his shell.

At the urging of his late mother, who suggested her son try college before the military, Jay followed his half-sister to YC in 2002. Community college agreed with him. He made lifelong friends living in the residence halls and serving in the Native American Club. He took advantage of student support services like TRIO and tutoring to keep him on track academically. He became a resident assistant, or RA, which he followed with a hall director position. “It was a really good place for me to find myself,” he said.

Working in the residence halls, which required Jay to make presentations, organize events, manage people and nudge other students to succeed, sparked an interest in teaching. He was pursuing an education degree through a then-partnership between YC and NAU when his mom died, his grades sank, and he was placed on academic probation.

Jay returned to the Navajo Reservation for a time to help raise his siblings, but never gave up on his dream of becoming a teacher. “One day I came across an old video of my mother smiling and looking at the camera. I thought to myself about all the prayers and songs she shared throughout my life, I realized that I needed to make her proud, even though she isn’t with us. I wanted to fulfill that dream and finish my academics,” he recalled of his decision to work and save the money he needed to return to college. “I could have spent that money on something else, but it got me back into school and from then on I earned a 4.0 GPA,” he said.

Jay earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at NAU in 2012 and 2018, respectively. He is on track to earn his second master’s degree in educational leadership at NAU in 2024 as part of a grant-funded program to train indigenous educators to lead and innovate Native American-serving schools.

Jay met his wife, Kristen, a fellow teacher-turned librarian, while student teaching at Moencopi Day School on the Hopi Reservation. The couple married in 2014, are raising their children ages 3 to 18 near Tuba City and both now work at Tuba City Boarding School.

Few of Jay’s own teachers growing up looked like him and he set out to change that, choosing to pursue his teaching career in the same school he attended as a boy. In his classroom and in social media posts, he invokes the value of education – a degree or a credential – as the path to the best things in life – a rewarding a career, a home, land, a family and, as his social media reveals, the means to a new Suns jersey, the newest iphone, memorable vacations and replacing a dilapidated trampoline. 

“I walk the walk and talk the talk with my students. I tell them you can’t say it’s impossible because I’ve done it,” he said. On social media, Jay’s underlying message to his followers is essentially the same: “Be brave.”

“People are too worried about what other people think and it causes them to shield themselves and not be who they really are. After they get past that, it is a really good thing,” he said.

Along with inspiring his students and his own children to pursue higher education, Jay is proud of his efforts to innovate and streamline Navajo education with technology. During the pandemic he parlayed his education technology master’s degree into leading the team that adapted Navajo schools for online learning. He also helped Navajo parents adapt to the unfamiliar format with video tutorials in their native language.

With his fellow technology enthusiast wife’s help, Jay continues to access the latest technology for his students. He regularly employs robots in his classroom and he’s developing an esports arena – a project buoyed this fall by a visit with his students to YC and the college’s esports arena.

During the visit, Jay took the opportunity to create and post a social media video of his students rolling down the grass hill outside the Rider Diner – something he used to do, apparently with some regularity, while at YC.

“They’re never too young to see what college is like,” Jay said of the Prescott campus visit with his fourth graders. “It just might stick with them.”

While he loves teaching, Jay aspires one day to lead teachers and schools as a principal. He relishes the opportunity to be a catalyst for innovation and educational excellence for future generations of Navajos.

Asked if he contemplates monetizing his growing social media influence, Jay said the real rewards lie in the response to his Tik Toks and Instagram reels and the recognition from his students, his family, his Navajo brethren and even complete strangers.

“People do look at me a little weird sometimes and I just kind of wave. I don’t let it go to my head,” he said.