When Santiago Nielsen and Samir Helmy created the Northwestern Memes Facebook Page around 9 p.m. Tuesday night, the two McCormick freshmen did not expect an explosion of popularity. Within 24 hours, more than 2,000 users liked the page. At first, Nielsen and Helmy posted a set of their own original memes. Now, meme after meme created by students appear on the page.
Both international students, the two freshmen both saw U.K. schools’ meme pages appear on their Facebook newsfeeds and decided it was time Northwestern had one. They didn't realize that many other American schools had also started creating their own meme pages.
The submissions on the page are based off pre-existing memes like Boromir and High Expectations Asian Father. However, each meme has a Northwestern twist to it: in one, Philosoraptor asks, "Munch Money? Or Points?" Other well-known memes plague the page’s wall.
“Hopefully people will visit the page when they’re bored of studying or just want a break,” Helmy said. “I think it’s a very simple way to get a good laugh. You have a lot of things on the Internet that you can entertain yourself with, but it’s a very quick laugh.”
Nielsen and Helmy started the page with their own memes, but aimed for the page to become self-sufficient. “We weren’t planning on just making memes ourselves. We wanted to get it going and influence people. We were happy to see people get into it,” Helmy said.
The two expected the page to receive lots of attention, but not within a day. They hope the page’s fame will continue to rise.
“We thought it would work at Northwestern because we know the people here are creative and funny,” Nielsen said.
One of the active contributors to the page is Phil Dziedzic (McCormick '11), who posted memes including Forever Alone and First World Problems with their own Northwestern twist. Many of the memes submitted have garnered dozens of likes and comments from other students.
Communication senior Jenna Lebersfeld first saw the page around 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning, when a friend posted it on her Facebook. She estimates that the page still had fewer than 1,000 likes when she visited it hours after its creation.
Dziedzic and Lebersfeld both believe social media contributed to the page's fast rate of exposure. Lebersfeld also thinks that Northwestern’s innate culture helped.
“Northwestern students inherently love memes and inherently love themselves," Lebersfeld said. "When you mix Northwestern with memes, it will create a meme of itself. Essentially, it creates an internet sensation overnight."
As for the creators, the two have enjoyed seeing students submit their own memes, like ones based off Inception and Morty. Only offensive memes are removed: though some may appear less popular than others, they're left for others to enjoy.
“They’re so easy to make and you don’t really need any computer savvyness to make them,” Nielsen said. “The fact that people can contribute so easily is probably why people are so connected with them.”
As with all things Internet, the page's popularity may peter out with time. However, with finals in just a few weeks, the Northwestern student's tendency to procrastinate may bring new activity to the page.