University students have always known that "one does not simply park in Charlottesville," but they haven't always had a meme to refer to and laugh at with other students.
Internet memes have been popular online for years, but this year colleges started jumping on the trend and giving memes their own twist. More than 3,500 people have "liked" the University's Facebook community page "UVA memes" since its creation in early February.
Unlike more general memes which are not college-specific, the appeal of UVA memes seems to be that University students are able to relate more personally to the content they find on the page.
Websites such as "Memegenerator.net" and "Quickmeme.com" have encouraged students to participate in the trend by making it easy to create memes. It's as easy as selecting an image and typing in a funny message.
"I think the whole point of a meme is universalizing things," second-year Engineering student Barun Singh said. "People make memes about things like sitting in Clemons and someone's talking, or dining hall food, or things all U.Va. students experience. They just phrase it in a way U.Va. students find funny."
Students who create memes seem to know that when they think of funny situations at the University or in Charlottesville, other students will be able to relate and find them funny as well.
"I'd seen some [memes] and decided to join the page and made a couple funny ones, and it kind of went from there," second-year College student Saul Brodsky said. "I'd come up with a joke and tell my roommate and ask, 'What do you think?' And he'd be like, 'Yeah, you've gotta put that on.'"
One of these situations led to Brodsky's "Boromir" meme: "One does not simply find an apartment in GrandMarc."
Singh said University students are able to catch on to what would make a successful UVA meme.
"In my free time when I'm on my laptop trying to pass the time, I go look at the memes," Singh said. "You get an idea of the wit that's required."
While some memes poke fun at University students ("Oh, you wear Sperrys? It must be difficult parking your boat between classes."), others draw on jokes and funny situations most students can relate to, such as: "One does not simply park in Lambeth on the weekends."
Some crowd favorites make fun of other schools, especially Virginia Tech. One popular meme reads: "I don't always prefer safety schools, but when I do, I prefer Tech."
The number of memes posted on the page each day has snowballed during the last few weeks.
"I think it's because more people have been hearing about [the meme page], so they want to create their own," second-year College student Amy Yang said.
The college meme craze has become so popular that The Huffington Post picked up three memes from the page to feature in an article about college memes. One of these belonged to Yang, a "Success Kid" meme that read: "Falls asleep in class - wakes up in time for clicker question."
Yang said that like other University students who draw on real-life situations to create memes, the inspiration for hers came from a classmate who constantly fell asleep during a class.
"We have [clicker questions] spread throughout [the class], and he answers the first one and then falls asleep," she said. "But somehow when the professor asks another question he wakes up, answers the clicker question, and then falls asleep again. So I was thinking of him, and thought people could really relate to it."
Some University students, though, believe the fad of college memes will soon fade.
Brodsky said the concept of college memes cannot be maintained in the long run.
"Making up jokes about O-Hill and the library - there's only so far they can go," he said. "It gets to the point where it's not even funny anymore. People identify with them, but these are supposed to be jokes."
Singh, however, said while the initial popularity of college memes may wane, they are likely here to stay.
"I think it's going to keep going for a while before it fizzles out," Singh said. "It's like anything on the Internet - it gets a big boom but then doesn't totally disappear. Like 'Charlie bit my finger!' It's not popular now, but people look at it and share that stuff... it has a period of its boom and then it settles down and remains there"
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