I open up Instagram on my phone and burst into a fit of laughter. The face of a distraught-looking boy with tears in his eyes from what I can only guess to be a Renaissance painting fills the screen. A simple caption above it reads, “when you thought Dr. Dub knew your name but all he says is ‘hey.’” I send the post to my roommate, then click on the username and scroll down through the account’s most recent posts that I have missed. Most elicit the same reaction from me, and I feel satisfied that I’m up-to-date on the latest buzz to sweep across Union University.
A relatively new Instagram account called UU Memes (pronounced MEEMS) has been discovered by the Union community and has caused quite a stir among students over the past three weeks. Created on Sept. 11, the account (at the time of this writing) already has 850 followers and 30 posts, with each post containing a Union-related meme poking fun at anything from open dorm hours to chapel to Cobo to Union students’ propensity for taking photos of sunsets to Buster the bulldog.
Ethologist Richard Dawkins first coined the term meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene in an attempt to explain the way cultural information spreads. In today’s digital age, a meme is simply an element of a culture that is passed from one person to another by means of the Internet, usually taking on the form of a humorous picture, video, or catchphrase. Memes are popular because they’re funny and relatable and can tell the consumer about the culture. This is in part why Union students find a page like UU Memes so appealing. Not only does it make students laugh, but it also gives expression to their own unique school culture.
Students across campus have been speculating for weeks about the mysterious person who runs the UU Memes account. Living on a campus without any major scandals or incidents, Union students tend to gravitate toward any slight conflict or controversy to satisfy their need for a thrill. The creator (or creators) have been careful in concealing their identity to keep the page’s appeal and to avoid any possible backlash, even unfollowing all of the students it followed in the beginning to prevent anyone from discovering any clues or patterns in who they followed. (The account currently only follows two people: Union’s president, Dr. Dub Oliver, and actor Vin Diesel).
In addition to the memes it posts, UU Memes frequently invites followers to ask them questions on its Instagram story. Last week, their answers were signed by The Cardinal, The Cream and The Jester, leading some to believe that three people run the account and others to insist that it’s a trick intended to throw people off.
When asked what inspired them to make the page, The Cream responded, “We felt like there was a niche for a good, active meme account and that we could fill it. Union is a meme-generating machine!”
Intent on uncovering the truth about who has caused such a stir, I set out to investigate. Although googling various ways of determining who an anonymous Instagram account belongs to ultimately failed (it turns out you can’t find who an anonymous account belongs to unless you file a lawsuit or you’re a professional hacker), I had another tactic: I sat down and talked with each of the top six suspects.
The Suspects
Jonathan Cooper
Jonathan Cooper, sophomore Christian ministry and missions major, seems to be the top suspect on campus. He’s goofy, he’s known for making memes, and he likes to stand out.
Cooper describes memes as a “comedic trend or joke” that is passed along for people to appreciate or modify and create their own “incarnations” of the trend. He explained to me that memes have existed for a long time in human history, with their most notable appearance in World War II, when Allied soldiers would draw a little cartoon character wherever they passed and write “Kilroy was here,” which became a popular meme. Memes in the modern day, however, have primarily focused on the internet, where their spread has become much quicker and more prominent. He said that memes are popular because they tend to focus on comedy, relatability and irony to create effect.
I then asked him about his background in making memes.
“I’m not what you would call a traditional meme creator,” Cooper said. “I don’t admin any meme pages, but I have contributed to a couple meme pages. Honestly, it’s just through an app on my phone where you can take images and just put different captions on it. Sometimes I’ll go into Snapchat and use their editing tools to put in different images or quotes or whatever it is. If I see a funny opportunity to make a meme, then I’ll use like the tools I have on my phone to make them. I have sent memes to different meme accounts, including UU Memes. Even though I’m not a traditional meme admin, I contributed to the culture.”
Another reason people suspect Cooper is that a photo of him in a Deadpool costume was made into a meme and submitted for the account’s second post, so I asked him how he got the meme submitted so quickly.
“UU Memes was on my recommendation list early in its lifespan,” Cooper said. “Some of my close friends had found out about them and started following them and recommended it to me when they had a relatively small following. I think I joined when they had just over 20 followers. Instantly, I clicked with the niche that they were trying to go for. Union is a very connected community, and a lot of the inside jokes on campus are understood by most people and there are a lot of things that are only understood by students of Union, so I knew there was definitely an opportunity for great memes.”
He said that, a couple of days prior to finding out about UU Memes, he had taken the photo in the Deadpool costume for a friend’s photography project. When he found out about the page, he realized he already had a funny picture that was taken on campus and that it would be good material to make memes out of, and knowing there would be free Amish donuts the next day, he sent in the meme and the admin decided to put it on the page.
“I couldn’t be prouder of my artistic talents and contributions,” Cooper said with a laugh.
When I asked if he had any theories about whom the admin might be, he said that everyone he’s suspected has given him proof of their innocence by showing them the direct messages sent back and forth between the person and UU Memes, the same proof that he shows people when he’s questioned.
“If it was the same person, they would have to be going to elaborate lengths to maintain anonymity,” Cooper said.
When I brought up the idea of there being multiple admins, Cooper said he liked that idea.
“Should one of the admins be found out, at least they would have the safety in the other admins having the anonymity,” he said. “Also, I think having multiple people on the project allows better memes. I think with having multiple admins, you can bounce off ideas and ask for different input on the memes that you’re putting in so that the memes that you put out are the funniest and highest quality that you can as far as memes go.”
Cooper also prefers the account to be anonymous.
“Honestly, I feel like it’s better that way because I feel that if people found out who it was, then perhaps they wouldn’t feel as free as they are to post some of the memes because some of their memes are biting commentary,” he said. “It’s all in good fun, they’re not meaning anything by it, but there are those people out there that take things too seriously and wouldn’t get the joke. So I think that keeping that anonymity [is important] so that they can preserve that fun aspect of it.”
As we wrapped up our conversation, he wanted to clarify his innocence one more time.
“No, I am not an admin on UU Memes. I’ve had about 30 people ask me. Unfortunately, no I’m not. I have contributed to the page, but I am not an admin.”
Daniel Potts
Cooper’s friend Daniel Potts, sophomore communication studies major, is also high on the list. Along with being closely associated with Cooper, Potts is very sarcastic.
Potts claimed not to be knowledgeable about meme culture. On one hand, he was very careful when answering my questions. On the other, his answers were terse and dripped with sarcasm.
“People are like lost puppies searching for their bone, and a meme is like, if a person is searching for what to laugh at, a meme can be just a random picture of a compilation of nothing at all that makes no sense, but it says ‘Here, this is on the internet. Everyone sees it. Laugh at this.’ That’s what people do.”
“What’s been your background in making memes?” I asked.
“I made a few terrible ‘you the real MVP’ memes back in middle school,” Potts said. “That’s it.”
When I inquired about his thoughts on the page, his sarcasm continued.
“To be quite frank, I think all of the stir that’s been going around is going to cause a war at some point and people are going to die.”
As for his theories?
“I could give you something stupid that you could write in your paper just for comedic value. I was going to tell you that I thought it was this guy named Nert, then be like ‘There’s no way Nert could make a meme page because Nert is a turtle.’ Do what you will with that.”
As our conversation concluded, Potts reiterated his lack of meme knowledge.
“I took this mildly seriously because I don’t really know anything about memes,” Potts said.
Or is he just playing dumb?
Hunter Martin
Hunter Martin, sophomore biblical studies and languages major and another close friend of Cooper and Potts, doesn’t necessarily have any qualities that make him stand out as a suspect other than being the perfect third admin if there is in fact three admins.
“[A meme is] a way to express anything just about in this world today, in like a funny or offensive way,” Martin said. “Sometimes it has meaning, and sometimes, like nowadays, it seems like it has no meaning. It’s just as stupid as possible.”
I asked about his meme-making background.
“I don’t really make memes,” Martin said. “I usually look at them. I know of a lot of them, but I don’t religiously make them like some of my friends do. Jonathan makes memes religiously. I don’t, I usually just look at them and follow along with them.”
He shared his theories with me and even admitted that he suspected Cooper at one point but told me that he was with Cooper when he messaged his submission to the page.
“They make it seem like it’s multiple people, but I think there’s a possibility that it isn’t and that they’re pretending to be multiple people,” Martin said. “I love it. I think it’s really fun and smart of them to do so because they got famous super fast and they’re so smart with keeping it a secret. It’s just like they’re planting little seeds here and there.”
William Lewis
“A meme is to culture what instinct is to biology. The instinct you have to breathe, memes are like a cultural unit that’s equivalent to an instinct. It’s just this thing that you just get. You just absorb it through cultural osmosis.”
William Lewis, sophomore sociology and theology major, is another high-ranking suspect, whether it be from his intellectual qualities, his frequent critiques of society or simply his interest in memes. As we began our conversation, he told me that he was thinking about doing some kind of sociology project on memes.
Lewis went on to tell me that memes are popular because people “get” them. He pointed to one of UU Memes’ posts that made fun of freshmen’s impulsive dating tendencies.
“Union gets that because Union has a pretty serious dating culture,” Lewis said. “The freshmen are notorious for getting into relationships like a week after they get here. And so you take that thing, that cultural trope, that itself is a meme. That fact that we all just sort of know, like no one had to tell us that. It’s just sort of like we just absorb it through being at Union. They took that and they put it in a humorous image form. That makes it funny, because we look at it and we instantly get it.”
I asked about his background in meme-making.
“I’ve never been very good at it in all honesty,” he said.
Lewis said he made his first meme when he was in eighth or ninth grade on a messenger app called Kik, which had a basic top-text, bottom-text meme-maker section.
“I made a really bad one, it was like velociraptor or something like that. I wouldn’t have made another one, like I didn’t think they were that great. I like to laugh at them. I didn’t like to make them. But all of the dudes I hung out with in high school were super hardcore meme dudes, so I had to sort of evolve to fit that kind of culture.”
He told me that when he makes a meme, he has to write it on a phone note, take a screenshot and crop it because he doesn’t have any editing software.
“I don’t know how to use computers well enough to do stuff like that,” he said.
Since high school, Lewis says that he’s only made about two memes, one after Jeff Sessions was confirmed to be the attorney general and one making fun of white privilege.
“Mostly it’s just to vent my own angst, I guess,” Lewis said. “I don’t post them anywhere.”
Lewis said he woke up one morning to a new follow request from UU Memes and was skeptical because he thought it was a continuation of a Union Memes Facebook page, which doesn’t post often and posts basic memes, until he saw that the Instagram bio was different.
When I asked about his theories, Cooper’s name came back up.
“You know Jonathan Cooper?” Lewis said. “He’s a pretty meme-y guy. The second or third meme they posted had Jonathan Cooper credited in the thing, but Jonathan Cooper crediting himself for a submission to throw people off is exactly what I would expect him to do.”
Lewis had one final comment to make before our conversation ended.
“You have to be almost unhealthily obsessed to make a page like that,” Lewis said. “Mad respect to him, but you’ve gotta have almost some problems to do that.”
Luke Walden
Luke Walden, sophomore psychology major and a close friend of Lewis, would seem to be the perfect accomplice.
“[Memes] are the medium through which our generation expresses humor, either to make fun of something or to reference something or just a joke,” Walden said.
“What has been your background in making memes and in what context?” I asked.
“Is this an interrogation or an interview?” Walden said with a grin. “I’ve made memes for friends and stuff. I’ve made a few jokes on the internet with them, but like not a whole lot. I’m a consumer of memes, but I don’t really make them.”
I then asked what he thought about “The Cardinal,” “The Cream” and “The Jester.”
“I don’t know what they’re trying to do with that, maybe they’re trying to throw people off, I don’t know. I get cardinal and cream, but jester doesn’t make sense. If it was me, I would make up different personas to throw people off.”
Walden also brought up Cooper, saying that Cooper could be posting comments to throw people off.
Before we parted ways, Walden had one last cryptic remark.
“Remember what they said, ‘The day UU Memes is exposed is the day it dies.’”
Could this have been a warning to stop my investigation?
Cameron “Woody” Woodard
Cameron “Woody” Woodard, sophomore journalism major, is the last of our top six suspects. Woodard is witty, smart and already well-liked on campus, he was the first commenter and his love for memes is obvious.
“I’m a big meme guy,” Woodard said. “I’ve been following the meme train for as long as I can remember. Memes are the backbone of cynical humor. Memes are life. You have to love memes, accept memes, cherish them, love them. They keep us whole. They keep us tight as a community.”
I asked him how he would explain memes to someone unfamiliar with them.
“A meme is like a dry, cynical joke that essentially takes an image and inserts captions into it,” Woodard said. “It could be a cartoon face, it could be something artistic. It inserts a funny caption into it making fun of a broad concept… A meme doesn’t necessarily have to have words either. It can be just an image itself. It’s so funny that you use it to talk about other things. It’s very millennial.”
Woodard says memes are popular because they typically give visualization to the type of joke being made.
“If you make the statement, ‘This is me when I wake up in the morning,’ nobody knows what that is, but if you throw in a funny little picture of like a cat waking up and its hair is all messed up, then you kind of get a visualization of ‘Oh, I understand what she’s saying. She wakes up, and her hair is messed up and she’s disorganized.’ It almost gives like a face to the joke.”
Woodard told me that he wasn’t really in the business of making memes but that he was very active in the Reddit community where memes were born and has helped facilitate some memes early on just by sharing and liking them.
“What I’ve found from my friends who have made memes is that it’s extremely easy to do. You find a stock image photo, any sort of images that could somehow relate to whatever you’re trying to get across. The joke can be whatever you want it to be.”
Although there hasn’t been a meme on the Instagram page that he’s technically disagreed with and he believes that all of them have some truth to them, he still has some concerns.
“I think it’s funny, but my worry for any page that makes fun of the school in a lighthearted way almost always becomes a soapbox for the person that’s making them,” Woodard said. “Their opinions on Greek life, University Ministries, safety and security rules, come out pretty clearly. You have someone behind that page, whoever it may be, and a lot of times something like this will become a soapbox for that person. I think that’s the danger anytime you create an account specifically to tease somebody. As long as you continue to kind of make fun of broad Union things, I think it’s pretty harmless.”
While he declined to divulge the names of the people he suspects are behind the page to avoid creating any negative connotation towards those people, he did have a general theory.
“I think it’s somebody who’s probably pretty opinionated, who’s probably into the meme world like I am. A lot of times if you want to make memes about something, usually underneath you kind of are critical of it. Union’s an incredible school, nobody’s denying that, but anytime you can tease fun at it, I think that’s a good healthy way for students to kind of agree on things.”
Woodard was surprised when I told him that he was a suspect.
“As a joke, I reported it as spam, so it’s definitely not me,” he said. “I wish it was me. I think I would be much wittier, my profile wouldn’t have all this stuff and I wouldn’t have stories either.”
As for being the first commenter, Woodard said he found the page because it was a recommended page. At the time, it only had one post and eight followers. He saw the first post and it made him laugh, so he followed it.
Before our conversation ended, Woodard shifted gears.
“I’m not saying it’s not me. I’m just saying it most likely is not me, given that I hadn’t seen some of these before.”
After conducting my interviews and investigation, it seems that I didn’t get any closer to figuring out the mystery person’s identity. However, I did gain insight into meme culture and into the top six suspects. Most of them acted coy. Cooper had a slightly smug grin throughout our conversation, like he was proud of something, especially when we talked about there being multiple admins. Potts seemed the least willing to meet with me, and his sarcasm, abrupt answers and insistence that he knew nothing about memes could have been a cover. Martin would be the perfect third accomplice. Lewis said that he didn’t know who the perpetrator was too many times. Walden acted smug and gave me brief answers. Woody was the first commenter, but also seemed to have a genuine reaction when he saw the latest memes.
As for the creator’s true identity, you decide. Ultimately, the mystery of the UU Memes account has brought students together and allowed students a space to share in inside jokes of Union culture. Perhaps anonymity is best, in order to keep its appeal and its thrill. As The Cardinal proclaimed on its Instagram story and Walden reminded me, “The day UU Memes is exposed is the day it dies.”
Photo by Campbell Padgett
Awesome Article.
The Mystery Continues…