B.U.'s Memes Get Edgy
Welcome to our weekly round-up of notable news from Boston’s college campuses, which we bring you because, hey, it’s the greatest four years of someone’s life right now. We’ll be posting a collection of quirky tales from our many fine institutions of higher learning. In our third installment, a BU meme shows us what kind of week it’s been, Northeastern reckons with gravity, and BU is really excited to inform you that PSY once attended their school.
B.U. Memes thinks you’re the racist. A mini controversy over the “BU Memes” Facebook page makes for a good window into the kind of week it’s been over at Boston University. The meme-makers, who capitalize on popular jokes going around the web with BU-related themes, uploaded this picture to their Facebook page.
It’s a reference to the African-American students who say they’ve been unfairly viewed with suspicion by peers ever since the police publicized the race of the suspects in a spate of robbings around campus. It’s also a play on the “Successful Black Man” meme elsewhere on the web, which does the similar bait and switch on racial stereotypes game. Here’s an example:
Comments on the photo that declare it offensive have been greeted with the classic “No, you’re the racist” retort from the BU Memes moderators. “This meme is not meant to make fun of the African American race but rather to make fun of those who make quick and unfair judgements about others. If you only read the first line and make a judgement as to what he’s implying, this is similar to you viewing someone’s skin color and making a judgement about their character,” the moderator said in a comment on the photo. Certainly a lot of people didn’t need that explanation. It has 155 likes on Facebook as of this writing. The editor in us does have to point out, though, that the “Let’s Go Rob” is not properly punctuated to indicate a direct address to a person named Rob. (“Let’s go, Rob.”) Commas: the small dots on a page that stand between you and charges of racism. [Bostinno.]
Northeastern athletes subject to constraints of gravity: College newspaper coverage of the bizarre college sport Quidditch — a real-world adaptation of the Harry Potter game in which people straddle broomsticks and play some kind of handball-meets-tag — is always appropriately quirky and whimsical. (See how many Potter puns we fit into this little post.) Bucking that trend is Northeastern’s Huntington News where reporter Miharu Sugie took an important aside to explain something to readers: “The human, or muggle, version of the game involves brooms, but no flight.” Phew, glad we cleared that up! [Huntington News]
Harvard class cancelled: Yet another casualty of the Harvard cheating scandal: the class itself. The Crimson reported this week that Government 1310: Introduction to Congress no longer appears in the course catalogue for next semester. The class is still being offered next academic year, though with an instructor TBD, so perhaps they are just working to retool it. After all, Congress isn’t going anywhere and presumably still needs an introduction. [The Crimson]
Just so we’re all clear that PSY went to B.U. Hey, did you know that South Korean breakout sensation PSY went to Boston University for a semester? Did ya? If the answer is “no,” that’s because you have not visited the BU homepage lately where there’s a hard to miss animation of a dude doing his best (somewhat insufficient) impression of PSY’s horsey dance thing. Here’s a screenshot:
And in case you missed it: Elsewhere on Boston Daily this week, a couple from Hong Kong spent $2.2 million attempting to get their sons into Harvard. And Jennifer Anniston and MIT are now in the hair care business together, sort of.
