“One does not simply make a popular Guilford Facebook page.”

O, RLY?

Since its start on Feb. 7, the Guilford Meme page on Facebook has had almost 15,000 views. This begs the question: why has this Internet phenomenon been received so well by Guilford students, alumni, faculty and staff? In order to understand the popularity of such images, one first needs to understand what a meme is.

A meme is an image that imitates and makes fun of one of the cultural norms of a group of people. The Guilford Meme page specializes in satirical comments about everyday life on campus as well as some of the funny experiences students have had. For instance, “One does not simply open their mailbox with ease the first time.”

“These memes are a marker of our generation,” said senior Nick Greco. “They are a form of satirical pop art when done right. The rest are usually just some form of stupid humor or a bad joke, but still are funny.”

Since the page’s start, these funny images have attracted alumni, students and even faculty by the hundreds. Zach Daw ’11, creator of the page, was completely blown away by the positive response to Guilford Memes.

“I expected maybe 40 or 50 of my friends to join before I left the page for dead,” Daw said. “The morning after I made the page I kept checking the page on my iPhone when I realized I had 20 more fans, then 40 more, then had something like 360 by the end of day one.”

The page currently has close to 1,000 likes and while Daw still creates many of the pictures for the site, user-generated content is becoming regular. Some fans are even taking pictures of events on campus and creating memes from them as well as laughing over the memes other people create.

“While some of them are pretty stupid, there are some that I just can’t stop laughing at,” said senior Lauren Stafford-Smith.

Not all the pictures posted on the page have been taken as funny. One image in particular caused quite a bit of controversy. When Daw posted a picture making light of the Jon Hatch incident, many of the viewers argued over the controversial nature of the image. Because of the backlash from the image, Daw took it down and issued an apology.

“About 60 percent of the people who commented did not like this sensitive issue brought up so soon, citing that it was insensitive to the victims of (Hatch’s) actions,” Daw said. “I admitted on the page that I was shortsighted and pulled it down as a result. Some people were upset over this, claiming that it was a free speech issue.”

Daw stated that his page was a place for people to come together and laugh, not a place for people to debate and get upset. However, some still hold that people should be allowed to upload any joke they would like.

“I fully support the issue of freedom of speech, even if I don’t agree with the situation,” senior Brian Jones said. “People have the right to say what they want to say, even if others disagree.”

Despite the issues of freedom of speech, the page is fast becoming a center for user-generated images poking fun at the school.

“It is really great to see Guilford students take such serious issues and portray them in … silly ways,” said Jones.

Because of this growing contribution, Daw has decided to create a new section of the page dedicated to the best and most popular memes. In Daw’s own words, it will be a “Hall of Fame album.”

“That way we can not only give credit to their artists but also have a way for new fans … to see the best of the best from the early days of the page,” said Daw.

One thing people are agreeing on is that this page does offer a realistic — though often exaggerated — interpretation of life at Guilford.

“The bottom line is that we all share a common ground in that we are Guilford students who deal with 90 percent of the same stuff on a daily basis,” said Daw. “It also shows how not too much has really changed at Guilford over the decades.”

So while Guilford students, alumni, faculty and staff are laughing about the shenanigans of the college, only one question remains unanswered …