Barely two weeks ago, a new phenomenon hit the Internet, creating a buzz around campus that hadn’t been heard in a very long time: the BC Memes Facebook page. Memes have been around for a few years, mostly found on thechive.com and reddit.com, but did not gain their popularity until very recently. As some other schools around the country began making pages for their own memes, two BC Juniors saw an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up. “Why not bring them to BC before someone else does?”
Anonymously, and on a whim, Brendan Doyle created the page, not expecting it to be anything this popular. He explained, “I had no idea how big it would be. I thought it would just be a side project, something fun to do on the side.” After making the page and designing a simple picture for the page, he knew he had to get some memes out there so that it would catch on. Enlisting Mansoor Choudhry’s assistance, they began inviting everyone they knew to “like” the page and continued making their own memes, hoping that it would take off. It was slow at first, and BU students started posting some inappropriate and offensive things. They knew they had to “stick it out and stand strong.”
They didn’t have to wait for long, however. After deleting some posts and banning a few people, more BC students started posting, and the page grew at an amazing pace. Practically overnight, the page blew up, attracting almost 5,500 “likes” from current students and alums, as Boston College’s new favorite form of entertainment and procrastination.
The memes aren’t all about fun, however. Brendan and Mansoor explained that there is much more to them than their humor. They said that memes were made so that people could relate to one another, a way to connect and bring the campus together through common experiences and causes that are unique to BC. For a campus that sometimes has some trouble unifying, memes created a way for a lot of people to come together for a common cause and to bond over everyday experiences, both important and trivial.
Brendan and Mansoor agree that the most important function that the memes have is their ability to bring out issues and concerns on campus that have typically been somewhat taboo subjects by lightly poking fun at them. By exposing central issues on campus, such as diversity and sexuality, they hope that UGBC and the school administration will consider new ways to approach them and ultimately find solutions to them.
So what happens when things get out of control? “Exposing issues is great and poking fun at things is fine. We all need to laugh at ourselves sometimes, but while some of the other college memes pages have had issues with rudeness, insensitivity, and inappropriate postings, BC’s page has not. We have been lucky so far because we haven’t had to deal with that at all.” Whenever they come across a meme that doesn’t belong on the page, they delete it immediately. Keeping the page clean, friendly, and welcoming is one of their major concerns.
In the future, Brendan and Mansoor hope to expand the scope of the BC Memes page’s reach to make it more exciting. To keep up interest, they are planning on creating a Hall of Fame album of the best, most relevant memes. They know that since many of the main points have been hit, it will slow down for a while, but whenever something exciting happens, more people will post, and they hope that the cycle will continue!
So, if you haven’t already, check out the Facebook page, “like” it, read the memes, and even make your own!! They are hilarious, insightful, truthful, and revealing about real life at Boston College.