That’s a Mood: Meme Culture Among Singaporean Students
School memepages have become a source of levity and community for today’s students.
Humor. A form of respite that students look to in times of stress, away from the busy lifestyle from school. Provided by a simple page that stands for the student’s voices. A page of anonymity. A page of relatability. A meme page.
In this article, we take a look into something so commonplace in our student lives, yet something that is often overlooked. Meme pages. They provide a platform for students to relate to, churning out humor to make our academic-filled lives just a little less boring.
School meme pages on Instagram began their advent in early 2017, gaining traction among students by posting simple images with simpler captions. The idea was, so to say, simple. Yet the pages grew quickly into a form of school identity, serving as the informal persona of each school. Even prospective students would turn to meme pages to gain insight into what school culture is like, for a different perspective from the official school page.
To look into how it all started, we interviewed several admins from popular meme pages, such as @tkk.jc, @southernseas.jc and @dover_poly.
The main reason the admins mentioned for starting the page was to gain a form of school representation. They had gained inspiration from other sources of meme production, like existing meme pages and other forums.
Meme pages actually grow alongside one another, inspiring new pages to form as well as giving ideas for memes to showcase to their following. For instance, the co-founders of @southernseas.jc mentioned that @tkk.jc was one of their inspirations for starting the page.
Admin OG of @southernseas.jc, also states:
“I picked up an interest in making memes after O levels. It’s not really a thing anymore but O level meme accounts on Twitter was a thing that was going on around 2014–2017. It was a bunch of people creating accounts on Twitter to share memes about the o level papers and meme about the whole O level experience la (sic)”
These kinds of twitter accounts showcased relatable memes that directly referenced the ‘O’ Level papers, drawing students’ attention. Indeed the idea of relatability can seem so simple. Yet, it is the driving fuel that has propelled school meme pages into prominence.
Relatability to students is an important part of meme pages: admin-student interactions show that pages weren’t just funny forums run by unspeaking, anonymous admins. The importance of interaction prompted admins to use other applications to further capture the attention of their followers. One example of such an application would be Tellonym.
Tellonym is an application that has gained popularity over the past two years, allowing for anonymous messages to be sent to accounts. Meme pages have turned it into a platform for schoolmates to anonymously interact by broadcasting submissions onto their Instagram stories. Some submissions ask for advice, some give feedback, and some just voice opinions on matters in life.
It has become a stage for students to express their voice. A voice on pressing issues, a voice on trivial issues, and a voice of advice. Using Tellonym as a way to interact with the admins, students discuss key events in school life and in some cases to voice opinions on controversial issues.
An example of how students utilise Tellonym to learn more about the school is brought up by Jackie, the founder of @tkk.jc:
“During orientation periods especially, many students come on to @tkk.jc to ask about subject combinations, CCA trials, orientation programs, etc. “
However, the Tellonym has not always been purely innocent questions or opinions on trivial topics. Issues crop up especially during controversial periods. Admin nymuggers, the co-founder of @southernseas.jc, addresses this,
“When it comes to controversial topics, offensive tells, and highly polarising topics it becomes really difficult to manage. The currently ongoing black lives matter for example, we had a couple of days worth of tells of people discussing. It can be challenging at times to keep the discussion free of hate speech”
Keeping the page politically correct might not seem like a concern to most followers, considering that most simply want to enjoy the funny memes that the admins churn out. However, behind the scenes, the admins consider every piece of content they put out, knowing that they do represent a part of their school.
A key event highlighting the importance of tasteful posts on school meme pages is when the page, @nyjcmememachine, was taken down. On September 11 in 2018, the former school meme page posted a meme that referenced the terrorist attack. Although it was stated by the page admins that no ill will was meant from posting the meme, it was reported by a 23-year-old undergraduate who felt the material was inappropriate. The meme page was quickly retired and deleted, despite the 10 000 followers it had gained over the years.
This served as a wake-up call to other page admins: that the anonymity of a page admin was not one to be taken for granted, that there was a line that should not be crossed, that no matter what — fundamentally — they were still a representative of the school.
But moving forward from the controversy, meme pages have definitely served as a good influence on the student community.
They inject humor into the hectic academic lives of students, bring attention to lesser-known issues, and give students a place to learn more about their school to an in-depth and, to a certain extent, uncensored degree.
In an interview with a JC2 student from Nanyang JC, this is what they had to say about the page:
“It truly can be a representation of how people view NYJC or her students but on the whole, the intention behind it is positive meant to spread joy and in a way foster closer bonds between NYJC-ians”
In another interview with a Y2 student from Singapore Polytechnic (SP), Kang Yi Jin, he mentions,
“When I first entered SP and looked at the memes, I didn’t really understand them till I was more familiar with the school. Exclusivity, in this case, is not a bad thing, it just makes the meme page unique to the institution.”
A page made by students, for students, run by students. At the core, the page is one that vocalises the true nature of the school. But what is it like running a page that posts humorous images online to an audience of thousands?
To run such a large page with close to daily posts and stories, one might assume that there is a large team behind the success of these pages. However, to my surprise, there is a shockingly small group behind every page.
For @tkk.jc, there have been a total of only fifteen student admins, including those that are currently inactive. For one of the longest-running pages in Singapore, having run for more than three years since April 2017, this is an incredibly lean number. The other pages of lower mileage have even fewer admins, with @southernseas.jc at nine total and @dover_poly at five.
Running a meme page requires an aptitude for memes, a desire for creation, and a drive to bring people joy through the page. In fact, running a page in itself has brought the admins equal amounts of joy, giving them solace in their hectic academics. Admin Tilted of @dover_poly says,
“I make memes in my leisure time, it’s actually fun and helps take my mind off work.”
The idea of wanting to escape briefly from the stresses of life to focus on the simple task of making something funny, something relatable, is echoed by Jackie:
“Personally I found running the page during my ‘A’ Levels to be quite stress-relieving, and producing a levels related content was also a very welcome distraction.”
When the stress to do well is so overwhelming, retreating to a simpler objective is almost cathartic.
With both the joy they bring to others and to themselves, admins have been more than happy to devote their time to their meme page projects.
In some cases, the intent to spread joy goes beyond just running a school meme page. Jackie started his own meme page to bring the joy of memes to a new audience in his new phase of life, National Service. The page is called @crisis_of_identity_, run solely by himself.
To end off, here’s what the interviewed admins of the meme pages would like to say to the readers.
Admin OG : I encourage them to follow their local memepages and support the admins. A little love and appreciation goes a long way. Plus, you don’t have to run a meme page to meme- many pages would be happy to post your submissions too.
Admin nymuggers: in the end it’s just about value-adding to the lives of every student — giving them light-hearted humour, maybe advice/perspectives (via tells) and I guess for us admins, it’s also a chance to chill in this high-pressure environment (plus feel happy about making some other person’s day better). But yeah, do support local meme pages — they might be ‘non-essential’ per Straits Times LOL but I think many appreciate our existence haha
Admin Identity Crisis/Jackie: I would like to say to the readers, we are all very lucky to have been born in the era of such a prolific spread of memes, and I ask everyone to cherish this era of internet humor. Create your own content, share other people’s content, put a smile on someone’s faces, be it your friends, family or strangers online.
These are dark times, and the world is in quite a bit of turmoil. A little laughter doesn’t hurt, so enjoy the era of memes, share it, create it, and let it flourish as a torch in this world of dark events and turmoil.
