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Over the past week, the Bentley population has been swarming to one popular Facebook page – Bentley Memes. The page points out the quirks of Bentley and was created by our very own Conner Charlebois. Charlebois is a sophomore at Bentley who is majoring in Computer Information Systems. He created the page in his spare time. Charlebois is a busy student as a member of numerous clubs and he holds jobs around campus. He created the page, not expecting much, but the page spread like wildfire and does not show signs of stopping.
So, what inspired Charlebois in the first place? “I’ve really enjoyed meme humor,” he said. Over winter break, he thought of the idea when he frequented the popular 9gag.com. “I noticed Canadian universities had Facebook pages with memes that made fun of other competing schools. I wanted to make it better spirited and point out the quirks of Bentley,” Charlebois said. The popularity of the page has been growing tremendously; the first day had about ten likes, which exploded the next day. This came as a shock to Charlebois, as it started mostly as an outlet for himself. “I made the page on Friday night and it was going to be a page for me to post memes that I liked,” he said. Once he opened it up to users to post their own, it grew to over 1,300 likes and more that 275 user posts in just over a week.
The Bentley Meme page has been getting a lot of attention and Charlebois was asked by some of the students to make the page easier. “I’ve had a lot of requests to organize the memes by the number of likes. It’s a logistical challenge to do that on Facebook,” he said. This project has taken on a life of its own that he now has a small team of moderators to assure that the content is of sufficient quality. Charlebois was toying with the idea of moving the page away from Facebook to its own website, but there were challenges associated with that. By being on Facebook, students “don’t have to open up another page in their browser,” Charlebois said. Our new content gets routed straight to their newsfeeds.”
With a passion for the memes that he created and for the user-created ones, Charlebois must have a favorite. “My favorite meme was the one about the most interesting cat in the world which says ‘I don’t always eat seasons, but when I do its almost as good as meow mix.’” As a CIS major, Charlebois has been working with advanced programs for years, which lends itself to other works that the Bentley student body would enjoy. “The team and I are working on some things and you’ll just have to wait and see. We are looking at Facebook apps and other uses for social sharing,” he said.
By opening up the page to the Bentley public, many students have been able to show their creativity in a humorous way. The page has sparked many people to express the little quirks at Bentley in the form of memes, which most of us can relate to. The Bentley Meme page has brought the Bentley community closer together with humor. Although Charlebois initially created the page just for fun, it has formed this community, because students understand the little things that only Bentley students notice around campus. Charlebois has a strong belief in the power of humor to affect a person’s feelings and mood, and he hopes that the humor generated from the page will help foster a greater sense of school spirit. The Bentley Memes page continues to grow and bring happiness to Bentley students and brings us together in a way that was not anticipated.
