Written by Jonathan Barker | Media by Thomas Hajny
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As college students, it’s safe to assume that all of us have a very stressful schedule. I know I do. My workload includes papers, projects, presentations, tests, reading assignments, night classes, labs, and not to mention, my part-time job. Our futures depend on what decisions we make as students. No pressure. How are we expected to handle this? Comic relief surely helps, and the Facebook page Greenville College Memes is a particularly popular outlet.
Source: Huffingtonpost.com
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I sat down with the founder of GC Memes to talk about the page. He created the page in September 2012 after many of his newfound friends would make Greenville related jokes through popular Internet memes. He had no idea what it would become. He explained: “I had no intention of making this page a campus-wide thing. It kind of just exploded in one day. One of my friends [who was also an admin of the page at the time] sent invites to a few dozen of his friends to like the page and it took off from there. We gained over 100 Likes in that single day.” Now there are over 700 Meme-enthusiasts following the page.
“The purpose of the page is to entertain, not to offend, although I think we have offended a few people along the way. A few of our memes have targeted specific individuals or groups in Greenville. One example was calling out Tim Caldwell in one of our posts, when I was personally frustrated with how the housing lottery was held. He understood our frustration and took it in stride. We also made fun of The Madison Letter and the lead singer actually played it off by commenting on the post. I thought that was really cool.”
“We also try to get people involved on campus, orienting our memes around current campus events. Similar to The Colbert Report or The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, it’s more than just humor. When I realized we had actually established a platform on campus, I wanted to do more than make fun of the DC Food. I think people enjoy our memes because we all deal with the same sources of stress and expressing that through humor brings us together, even if it is just a picture with captions shared on Facebook.”
Source: GC Memes Facebook page
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Maybe that’s why the improv shows performed by Joyous Chaos are so popular. There is nothing more delightful than gathering together with our peers and laughing away our pains. It is important that we don’t get wrapped up with the little things and are able to take some time for constructive human connection. I think that this is the type of fellowship Jesus instructs us to have as a community. I’m not saying you should purposefully avoid doing your homework to browse GC Memes, but if you’re losing your mind working on an assignment for hours, treat yourself to a break.
Tell me what you think! Do you think GC Memes is a good thing for our campus? Why or why not?
