While its name may simply conjure images of “Lazy College Senior” or “Cheezburger Cat,” the York U Memes Facebook page has become a prime source for major campus updates and (sometimes heated) student discussion. It’s also one of York’s few true communal spaces.
Since its inception in September 2012, the page has become one of the school’s strongest presences online. With 5,600 likes and growing, YorkU Memes reaches a broad and diverse demographic of the student body, while also frequently catching the attention of Ryerson University and University of Toronto students.
Co-founder Navid Khan, a third-year biochemistry major who serves as a YorkU Memes administrator mostly in secret, told me a bit about the page’s history. While in first year, he followed a different, very popular memes page for York, which was founded right at the onset of the meme craze. Rather abruptly, that page’s administrator deleted it.
“She shut down everything, and no one could find her or thank her or anything,” says Khan.
The following year, a first-year student named Sadman Hasan joined forces with then second-year Khan to revive the idea. Their plan was just to run the page for fun, but its popularity was instant and unexpected. “Within the first two hours, we had 218 likes,” Khan says.
This was soon followed by last year’s “Protest for more safety at York” event, organized in part by Khan, at which point YorkU Memes’ mandate expanded from just being a source of laughs to also covering major current topics, with a unique spin.
Khan and Hasan now run the page with three other students: Kim Mansukhani, Alex Hrytsevich and Mari Martin.
Despite its enormous reach, Hrytsevich tells me there are very few rules to running YorkU Memes.
“We just ‘do,’” she says. “It’s essentially like posting your own Facebook status. You just update with whatever you want, and everyone else usually goes along with it.”
So how did such a simple page manage to become a hit with so many York students?
Khan speculates that one ingredient is “commuter empathy.” The team agrees that YorkU Memes appeals to those who can’t be part of a physical community because they live off-campus. They also hypothesize that this may be the reason York has had so much trouble defining its community in the past. The internet allows for a non-localized kinship of sorts, which may be York’s missing link.
“York, as a whole, is sort of lost,” says Hrytsevich. “Everyone has different backgrounds and people are commuting from God-knows-where. Nothing really brings everyone together. As a group we try to target everybody and post things everyone can relate to.”
“There is a sense of community with the people who live on campus,” adds Mansukhani. “We see each other all the time. But with commuters, they don’t get the best of both worlds. So there is a social sense to YorkU Memes. People really bond over our posts.”
Commuting puts a restriction on students’ abilities to attend social gatherings. Khan points out those who live off-campus can’t stick around for pub nights, because they have to catch buses at certain times. He sees YorkU Memes as a way to update yourself on the big stories people are talking about.
Mansukhani also points out the page can spread the word on events and stories that some people were entirely unaware of, such as a pow-wow that took place last week.
When asked if they ever think about using this influence to advertise, the administrators give a unanimous no. “I don’t want to be that page,” says Hrytsevich. “Using our likes to promote stuff. If we’re going to advertise, it needs to be something we actually care about.”
Khan says that they’ve been offered money to promote things before, but notes the pages that do that often see their likes diminish very quickly.
Another element of YorkU Memes’ growing success may come from its increasing focus on news, at which the page has excelled. YorkU Memes was at the forefront of breaking the news of the Student Center shooting (which the page was reporting within minutes) and a few days later, a car accident on Pond Road.
Recently, YorkU Memes has walked a line between serious updates and maintaining the humourous posts it was created for. It’s a bit surreal to see a statement from York’s President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri, or a photo of the Student Center post-shooting, right next to Doge and Bad Luck Brian. But YorkU Memes seems to have found the right balance for its followers.
“We try our best to keep it funny because it is a memes page,” says Hrytsevich. “But at the same time, if something serious comes up, we’ll post.”
The news element is helped by a general trust among students.
“Students are closer to us than any other page. Whenever something happens, they’re the first to inbox us,” says Khan.
When asked how the page may have gained such respect and confidence from the student body, Mansukhani and Hrytsevich both cite the page’s unbiased nature. While it can be a battlefield for opinionated commenters (which the administrators admit can sometimes be infuriating), YorkU Memes remains a relatively neutral moderator.
As far as making the administrators infuriated goes, there have been some close calls behind the scenes. Mansukhani notes a time when she wrote “getting Yorked,” and a commenter asked, “Does that mean getting raped?”
But even in the most angering circumstances, the YorkU Memes administrators have thus far managed to stay impressively impartial and even retain a positive, lighthearted attitude towards their haters.
“I’ve seen people comment, ‘This was a waste of 15 seconds,’” Khan says with a laugh. “But it was a waste of your 15 seconds to comment that it was a waste of 15 seconds.”
“If you’re unhappy with the content, just unlike us,” Hrytsevich adds.
And though YorkU Memes’ reach of several thousand is certainly inspiring (and worth putting on a resume, the team agrees), the administrators remain humble if not wholly indifferent to the actual specific stats.
“It’s a personal thing,” says Mansukhani. “I don’t go around telling people I’m part of YorkU Memes.”
In fact, she reveals that even many of her friends don’t know.
“I’m indifferent towards our actual ‘fame,’” says Hrytsevich. “As long as people are liking the content and remaining attentive to what we’re doing, I’m happy.”
So what’s next for YorkU Memes?
The team is currently looking at expanding their circle of administrators (having people start out with smaller tasks), and preparing to pass the torch. With only one more year left for a couple of the key people behind the page, including originator Khan, the group is in the “brainstorming” phase.
Khan envisions this as a potential piece of York history, half-joking as he pictures a small fraternity behind the site’s management (“getting together when we’re 80”). He hopes the page can be passed on and on. He concludes, “I really want York students to know what’s going.”
Dustin Dyer
Features Editor
