Students embrace meme mania on Facebook

March 10, 2012 — by Kelly Liu and Karen Sung

“SITS IN BORING CLASS... FIRE ALARM GOES OFF,” reads a caption above and beneath an image of a baby pumping his fist. Posted on the Saratoga Memes page on Facebook, this “Success Kid” image represents students’ enthusiastic reactions about the accidental twice-sounded fire alarm on Feb. 27. It received approximately 80 “likes” from Saratoga High students.

“SITS IN BORING CLASS… FIRE ALARM GOES OFF,” reads a caption above and beneath an image of a baby pumping his fist. Posted on the Saratoga Memes page on Facebook, this “Success Kid” image represents students’ enthusiastic reactions about the accidental twice-sounded fire alarm on Feb. 27. It received approximately 80 “likes” from Saratoga High students.

The Internet meme satirizes a group’s idiosyncrasies by following a specific format: a definitive picture such as “Annoying Facebook Girl,” “Good Guy Greg” or “Forever Alone” with a humorous caption.

Now the meme has spread across Facebook, particularly in school groups within the month of February. The Saratoga Memes page, created on Feb. 21, provides students and alumni a public forum to share the unique characteristics of the school.

Another popular Saratoga meme on Facebook that gained almost 100 “likes” reads, “Tried to get into the library during tutorial to study … There was a line out the door” over a picture of a girl with tears streaming down her face. She is the “First World Problems” meme, representing problems a third-world country would not consider as actual issues.

At least 100 memes have been made and posted on the page by students within two weeks. Several have skyrocketed to 80 to 90 “likes” by peers. Little did the creators know how rapidly their page would grow; within three weeks, the page has accumulated 438 “likes” and 290 people were “talking about this.”

“We saw other schools with meme groups and we thought it would be fun to make one for SHS,” said one of the students involved creating the Saratoga Memes page who requested anonymity.

This Facebook meme page trend originated from undergraduate universities and has now trickled down to numerous high schools.

Many students discovered Saratoga Memes when they received a friend request from the page or took notice when the page gained popularity from various friends’ activities on their newsfeed. Most people can only guess about who created the page.

“No idea who’s behind it; it’s probably a senior because we, [the senior class,] have nothing to do,” said senior Mark Van Aken.

The unknown owners refused to share their identities “because [they] want the focus to remain on the Saratoga Memes page rather than [their] identities.” The interview was conducted through Facebook messages with the Saratoga Meme’s account.

While memes often make people laugh, sometimes they can go too far when it becomes offensive or hurtful to specific groups. Van Aken said that sometimes the jokes on the Saratoga Memes can be taken a bit too far.

According to senior Joshua Harris, sometimes students regard memes targeting certain teachers as demeaning, but he still believes that they are important because those memes are true to a certain extent.

“People just don’t like [some of the more critical memes] and realize they’re not funny. I’m sure some people find it funny, and we all know it’s in good fun anyway,” Van Aken said.

Harris thinks that since the rally commission is not allowed to tell certain jokes anymore, Saratoga Memes is “filling [that] hole [to make] fun of things on campus.”

Van Aken believes that the creators of Saratoga Memes have been successful in developing a page for students to share, relate and have a good laugh about what it is like being a Saratoga High student.

“[Saratoga Memes] is funny because we know a lot of those things are true,” said Van Aken. “It [unites] and brings us together as a school.”

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