Even if you aren’t one of the 1,095 Facebook followers, you’re probably aware of the newest Internet craze sweeping campus: Gustavus-Based memes. The page, which launched Feb. 9, boasts the explosive gain of over 700 followers after being live for less than 24 hours.

But why? How the devil did memes take Gustavus by storm, and will it prove more permanent than past fads?

Not since the days of Like-a-Little has Gustavus weathered such a feverish online trend. But while Like-a-Little used its ‘dear-diary’ charm to downplay its incredibly creepy nature, the GAC meme page is a different sort of animal entirely as it highlights our entire school and not our stalker-esque crushes.

“Memes are just another part of Internet culture, right there with funny videos and sleeping cats. Stuff like that,” English Professor and pop culture guru Sean Cobb said.

“What I like is the collaborative, Do-It-Yourself effort in the Internet meme, where people are encouraged to contribute and make their own meme photo, so it’s a communal effort in that sense,” Cobb said.

And that communal effort is emphasized on the GAC meme page, where everything we love/hate about Gustavus is humorously explained to us by Scumbag Steve, Good-Guy Greg and a Socially Awkward Penguin, among others major meme characters.

But because these jokes are told through memes, the more-casual Internet user is often left confused by the phenomenon.

“I’ve tried to explain this phenomenon to my parents before and, much to my dismay, they have no idea what’s going on. So [the meme] is very much an insider phenomenon, a very young phenomenon that is exclusionary in some ways,” Cobb said of the exclusive nature of memes.

So memes are really only funny when they are correctly conceived and understood. A poorly executed meme typically results in a severe case of facepalm. Memes are, in that sense, very much like an inside joke. But instead of a secret joke between friends, a meme is a joke for any person who uses the Internet to waste time (read: all nternet users). And because memes are so like inside jokes, there must be an unfortunate few people on the outside, wondering why Willy Wonka is such a condescending jackass.

“What I like about the Gustavus page is that they aren’t insulting, they’re funny, they’re about knowledge of unique aspects of the campus, and they’re humorous without being personal.” Cobb said of the page’s appeal. “I find it incredible the amount of creative energy and time that people are willing to put into these memes when there is no tangible payoff, because people are remarkably creative and clever with some of these.”

Posts on the page have declined from the initial deluge, but that doesn’t mean the meme page will fade into obscurity. I see it becoming ‘Overheard at Gustavus, Part II.’ But instead of some zany quote overheard at The Dive, the meme page will celebrate highlights (Seth Anderson: SCORE ALL THE POINTS!) and lowlights (First world problems: green bananas in the caf) of Gustavus life. The page will continue to take something common, the meme, and make it unique to us as Gusties.

If nothing else, we’ve all learned a thing or two about memes from the Facebook page. First, while I may not be able to locate Mordor on a map, I know unequivocally that one does not simply walk there. Second, if you don’t use a meme correctly, people will lash out. Violently. Cyber bullying is up 834 percent since the meme page’s creation.

Finally, it’s pronounced like “meem,” not “may-may.” Don’t make that mistake, or the Internet will come after you.

 

Meme:

Originally stemming from the Greek term mimeme, meaning “something imitated,” is presently defined as an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. Internet memes are most often comical and become popular extremely quickly, sometimes overnight. Always changing, memes can experience an evolutionary process; they can either become extinct and fall out of circulation, or they can evolve with the changing trends.

1) Peanut Butter Jelly Time is a flash video that features a dancing banana singing the song riginally made by The Buckwheat Boyz. It was in its prime in 2002, but has since been known as one of the funniest, (and most annoying), flash videos from that time. It’s popularity landed it numerous follow up videos and even PBJT related merchandise.

2)  “Charlie Bit Me”, also known as “Charlie bit my finger,” is an extremely popular viral video featuring a young child biting his brother’s finger, making him yelp in pain and proclaim in a British accent: “Ouch, Charlie, that really hurt! Charlie bit me!” Many parodies and remixes have come from this hilarious meme.

3) LOLcats, a popular phenomenon that started the early 2000s, features pictures of cats with unique spelling and text message like type, often called LOLspeak, which adds a humorous aspect to the picture. Starting in 2007, an ongoing LOLcats bible translation project was started by Martin Grondin and is now almost finished.

4) Rickrolling, one of the earliest internet memes, is an Internet meme that uses the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up.” When someone tries to click on a video or a hyperlink, the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. When a person clicks on the link and is led to the video, he or she is said to have been “rickrolled.”