The recent fad sweeping the UA campus is the Facebook page UARK memes. In 24 hours, nearly 100 students posted memes on the Facebook page, making jokes about everything from the lacking air conditioning in Humphreys Hall to the Arkansas Newswire emails that flood UA students’ inboxes at 2 a.m. in the morning.

Memes (pronounced meems for students who may not be familiar with them) have long been popular on sites like Reddit and 9gag, but have recently become popular on Facebook as well. One student saw genius in this and started the UARK memes page on Thursday evening.

The tagline on the Facebook page reads, “Avoid homework. Post memes,” and it seems that many UA students have heeded the call. Since UARK memes joined Facebook Thursday evening, more than 1600 students have ‘liked’ the page, and hundreds have posted memes. Some of the memes have gotten as many as 400 ‘likes’ from other students.

“I think they’re funny,” said Macy Brisben, junior. “It brings students together in a relatable way because we all know what it’s talking about.”

The memes can be addicting, too. When junior Paige Nelson showed her friend Jordan Hilton the Facebook page on Friday, Hilton was hooked.

“I couldn’t fall asleep until I read a lot of them,” Hilton said.

Alex Kidd, the UA student who started the page, was surprised at the page’s rise to popularity almost overnight.

“I have always assumed that people who read Internet memes were a minority at the UA, but it appears that quite a few people here are familiar with some of the best,” Kidd said, “Just when I thought I was forever alone,” he said, in reference to the ‘forever alone’ meme.

Kidd decided to start the page after he saw a friend from another university post a meme that was specific to their university. He got the idea to make a page for students to share their experience at the UA through memes.

Sophomore Grayson Barber first saw the page on Friday afternoon. At that point it had about 600 ‘likes.’ By that evening, he said, the page had more than 1000 ‘likes.’

Barber has made four memes so far using sites like memegenerator.com, he said.

“I think that UARK memes allows students to express their feelings about the UA in a humorous way,” Barber said. “Memes are an Internet culture, and their humor applies to all sorts of people, so it’s not really surprising that UARK memes became so popular.”

Some of the students who post memes on the page, though, get frustrated when they see other students using the memes incorrectly.

“I have noticed quite a few mentions on the page about the ‘improper use’ of certain memes,” Kidd said. “Not everyone has a PhD in meme-origins and their uses. Memes are supposed to be clever and fun, nothing more. Everyone should feel free to give meme-making a shot and share theirs with other students.”

As the number of UA students that ‘like’ the page grow, memes will continue to come in, causing students to come together and laugh about things to which all UA students can relate.