As the admin of an unrelated, 4000 member meme page, I understand the role that memes play. They serve many roles: a source of humor and entertainment, a form of literary criticism and a refuge from the stale tedium of daily life (particularly at a university such as ours).

It is with great interest that I have watched the rise of Case Western Reserve University’s very own college meme page: “Case Memes for Academically Challenged Beans” (the B, of course, being heavily stylized). It is in a class all of its own, completely devoid of both the bourgeois nihilism characteristic of the Ivy League pages and the mundane hedonism so often found on the pages of larger universities. It is a masterpiece.

What makes the page so impactful is the honesty with which the memes are constructed. Whatever the focus, the original content posted on the page perfectly satirizes the day-to-day life of the average student without ever truly falling into absurdity.

The memes are like this because CWRU attracts a certain kind of person. This person, I believe, is the kind of person that will save the world in the coming millennium. It is often said that attending CWRU for undergraduate studies is no one’s first choice: while that may be so, I challenge anyone to find me a harder worker than a biomedical engineering major, a group more dedicated to shaping their own future than the hordes of pre-medical students or a college freshman more confident than those in the entering class.

When my great-uncle was trained to be an electrical engineer at the Case Institute of Technology, the Internet wasn’t around. However, I like to think he’d be making original content complaining about the state of the PHYS 121 lab, just like so many others today. His hard work and dedication put him in charge of the Oahu transmitter during the Second World War; and while the meme posters on this campus may love to complain and skewer, they too are headed for success because those at CWRU never give up. Not in the face of an 18-credit hour load, internal disputes over meme censorship or critical school newspaper editorials.

Why not? Because the CWRU meme page represents the heart and soul of everything that makes this university great. Go forth, and meme.

Grant Whitmer

Fourth Year