David LeHouillier, who co-created BU Memes on Facebook, said his two-hour walk on Monday was the last free time he’s had since the page became popular.
“Overnight, it just went into a snowball effect and became the success it is now,” LeHouillier, a College of Communication sophomore, said. “I haven’t had time to get actual work done amidst all this fun.”
Since LeHouillier and College of Engineering sophomore Nicole Black created BU Memes Monday night, the page has received more than 5,500 “likes” and hundreds of memes from students.
Black recruited LeHouillier as her partner, after which they launched BU Memes. At its inception, they posted five to ten memes of their own.
Internet memes, images with catchphrases, became part of Internet culture and spread via social media websites. BU Memes involve commentary on inside jokes for BU students, which are meant to be satirical and funny, Black said.
“It’s not really a negative thing because there are memes that make fun of people, but we have everyone covered,” she said. “No one’s exempt. We have the CGS, the COM, the black, the Jewish, every meme.”
Another meme features Boromir from “Lord of the Rings” and reads “One does not simply / find a seat in the GSU.” The Boromir meme received over 600 “likes.”
The Condescending Fox meme states “People come to BU from all walks of life / Asia.”
Students were uploading memes by the minute on Wednesday. Black said the memes help bring a sense of community to BU.
“If you see that someone maybe thought the same thing as you about Warren dining hall, then it brings you guys together,” Black said. “That’s really what we need at BU because it is such a large campus.”
Black said her friend Alex Lee, a freshman at the University of Michigan, reached out to her as a part of his initiative to begin memes across all campuses. He plans to launch a website for all university memes, and has recruited friends at Duke University, Michigan State University and Michigan Technological University to create university memes.
“I know the issue with the Facebook page that a lot of people don’t like is that they want to see the good memes, they want to see the popular ones, but it requires scrolling through hundreds of memes that you don’t really want to read,” Black said.
Emerson College, Boston College, Suffolk University and Northeastern University are among colleges in the Boston area that have created their own memes.
Manasi Gaje, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, surfed BU Memes during her lunch break.
“Some of them are really clever,” Gaje said. “I’m really familiar with the memes, so I think it’s really funny that they’re using them to pertain to BU.”
Gaje noted a Rhett the Terrier meme she found funny. The meme states “Studies in SMG Starbucks / Looks for future husband.”
COM sophomore Ariel Ferrante said the popularity of the memes will eventually die down.
“Everything like that will eventually fade out,” Ferrante said. “Like a Little and everything like that didn’t last, but it’s funny for now.”
Another student, CAS sophomore Tiffany Parks, said several students have posted memes in which they miss the point of the image.
“There’s a few that have been used correctly and are funny, but with most of them, the way the meme was designed to be used is used incorrectly,” Parks said. Monica Weitekamp, a College of Engineering freshman, said she appreciates a lot of the memes about engineering jokes, but her favorite was a meme making fun of BU’s Commonwealth Avenue neighbors.
It reads, “BC starts to make memes / half of them are about BU.”
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