Facebook University Meme Pages
Editor’s Note: When uploading images to the gallery, please tag your submissions with the names of the academic institutions that are being referenced.
About
Facebook University Meme Pages are community pages featuring Internet memes related to specific academic institutions on the social networking site Facebook.
Origin
While Facebook pages for university-specific memes didn’t arrive en masse until February 2012, the earliest known Facebook Memes page[31] was created for Florida International University of Miami on October 1st, 2011. The first uploaded image featured a Y U NO Guy image macro with the caption “FIU / Y U NO make touchdown?”
In the following months, McGill Memes[26] Tumblr blog and The App State Memes Facebook page were created for McGill University on November 6th and Appalachian State University[30] on December 5th, respectively.
Spread
According to the University of Montreal Memes[29] website, the McGill Memes Tumblr inspired the creation of the UMontrealMemes[28] Facebook page on January 5th, 2012, accumulating over 2,170 likes in its first month. Several other University Meme pages followed suit outside of the United States, including the “NipU Memes”[20] Facebook page for Nipissing University of Ontario, Canada on January 24th and the “St. Andrews Memes” Facebook page for the University of St. Andrews, Scotland on February 3rd. On January 30th, the Facebook meme page for Nippissing University was mentioned on the college news site Maclens.ca[21] as the trend setter for the Facebook university meme pages in Canada.
On February 5th, the UT Texas Memes[12] Facebook page was created by Daniel Monroy, a computer science freshman. According to The Daily Texan’s interview with Monroy, the page received over 4,000 likes in less than 24 hours. The viral rise of UT Texas Memes was also picked up by the local blog The Austinist.[11] On February 9th, Minneapolis Daily[3] published an article about the “University of Minnesota Memes”[13] Facebook page, claiming it was created in response to the “University of Wisconsin Memes”[14] page and was followed by meme pages for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire[15] and the University of North Dakota.[16]
Notable Pages
- New York University Memes[41]
- Stanford University[17]
- Concordia University[18]
- University of Rutgers[4]
- Boston University[19]
- Iowa State University[22]
- Purdue University[23]
- Northeastern University[24]
- Yale University[25]
- University of Texas Memes[12]
- University of Minnesota[13]
- University of Wisconsin[14]
- University of North Dakota[16]
- Nipissing University[20]
- University of Montreal[28]
- McGill University[26]
- Appalachian State University[30]
- Florida International University[31]
- Duke University[35]
- University of Pittsburg[36]
- University of Birmingham[37]
- Michigan State University[38]
- University of St. Andrews[5]
- Harvard University[46]
News Media Coverage
Beginning in mid-February, both national, local and news publications like picked up on the emerging social media trend of university meme pages on Facebook and reported on the online reactions as well as that of students and school officials. According to the Google News Insights graph, the news coverage of “Facebook University Memes” continues to grow in volume, as of February 2012. The phenomenon was largely reported in news articles as the first mass-scale invasion of the meme culture into social networking sites.
Campus Memes Database
The same day, the website Campus Memes[34] was launched that contained a database of university-related image macros from academic institutions across North America. On February 13th, the site was reported on in the Toronto University student newspaper website The Varsity.[33]
Criticisms
On February 8th, a post titled “Some people started a Facebook page for memes at my university. I don’t think they get it”[10] reached the front page of Reddit that included Facebook screenshots of advice animals with inappropriate captions. The thread received over 13,000 up votes within 24 hours.
The same day, a computer reaction style rage comic expressing frustration with the new university meme pages (shown below) reached the front page of the f7u12[8] subreddit, receiving 3,526 up votes and generating more than 250 comments prior to being archived. The Daily Dot[9] subsequently published an article about the negative reception on Reddit, comparing the new Facebook trend to an Eternal September, a slang term that marks the time period of the Internet since September 1993, when Usenet saw its heaviest influx of newbies into the newsgroups.
On February 10th, a /r/terriblefacebookmemes[32] subreddit was created in which ill-captioned advice animals taken from various Facebook pages could be submitted. The subreddit accumulated over 1,100 subscribers within the first 48 hours.
Operation Higher Education
On February 12th, raid threads began popping up on 4chan’s /b/ (random) board calling to post porn and gore images to various Facebook university meme pages including Duke Memes[35], UPitt Memes[36],UoB Memes[37] and Michigan State Memes.[38] On February 13th, the Toronto University newspaper blog The Varsity[33] reported on the “Operation Higher Education” raids, claiming they had succeeded in temporarily taking down the Campus Memes[39] Facebook page.
Controversy
As the trend continued to spread across universities and grade schools in North America, Europe and Australasia throughout February, many Facebook meme pages[42][43][44][45] became entangled in controversies for allegedly harboring racist commentaries and critical remarks against the faculty and the school administration, as well as cyberbullying individual students. Following the shutdown of several Facebook meme pages, the controversy spawned a heated debate over where to draw the line between students exercising freedom of speech and violating the codes of conduct.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Facebook – Eastern Illinois University Memes
[2] Facebook – Concordia University Memes
[3] Minneapolis Daily – Memes taking over social media
[4] Facebook – Rutgers Memes
[5] Facebook – St. Andrews Memes
[6] Facebook – St. Andrews Memes Annoying Facebook Girls
[7] The Student Rooms – Anyone else seeing University meme pages on their facebook?
[8] Reddit – So my university now has a facebook page for memes…
[9] The Daily Dot – Eternal Memetember – Reddir recoils at mangled macros
[10] Reddit – Some people started a Facebook page for memes at my university. I don’t think they get it.
[11] Austinist – University of Texas Memes Are Now A Thing
[12] Facebook – UT Texas Memes
[13] Facebook – University of Minnesota Memes
[14] Facebook – University of Wisconsin Memes
[15] Facebook – University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire Memes
[16] Facebook – University of North Dakota Memes
[17] Facebook – Stanford Memes
[18] Facebook – Concordia University Memes
[20] Facebook – NipU Memes
[21] Macleans – Quick Memes – the new campus obsession
[22] Facebook – Iowa State University
[23] Facebook – Purdue University
[24] Facebook – Northeastern University Memes
[25] Facebook – Yale Memes
[26] Tumblr – McGill Memes
[27] Tumblr – Need Money For Scandinavian Students Society
[28] Facebook – UMontreal Memes
[29] UMontrealMemes University of Montreal Memes
[30] Facebook – App State Memes
[32] Reddit – /r/terriblefacebookmemes
[33] The Varsity – Notewagon Founders Behind University Meme Trend
[34] CampusMemes.com – Campus Memes
[35] Facebook – Duke Memes
[36] Facebook – UPitt Memes
[38] Facebook – Michigan State Memes
[39] Facebook – Campus Memes
[40] The Daily Texan – Meme webpage attracts abundant attention, participation
[42] The Colonade – Meme Page Causes Controversy
[43]CBS Detroit – Shocking Facebook Page Targets Local Students
[44] NewsTalk ZB – Meme Facebook pages catching attention of schools
[45] Waikato Times – Memes give kids power
[46] Facebook – “Harvard Memes”
