You don’t always read “The Ionian,” but when you do, you want to read about Iona memes.

Even if you’re not the most interesting man (or woman) in the world, chances are you have heard of the meme phenomenon consuming college students across the United States, Canada and parts of Europe. Just visit Facebook and see your friend studying at Oxford just liked “Oxford Uni Memes,” your cousin at the University of Oregon just liked “University of Oregon Memes” and now your roommate just “liked” Iona Memes.

The term “meme” was originally coined by evolutionary biologist and former Oxford University Professor for Public Understanding of Science Richard Dawkins. In his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene,” Dawkins described a meme as an idea or behavior that spreads through cultural phenomena. Memes could include catch-phrases, ideas and even fashion, Dawkins explains.

Internet memes follow Dawkins’ definition as humorous pictures capturing a unique idea are replicated and re-captioned to describe or satirize a quality of a specific individual or group of individuals.

“A meme is a picture, whether it is a pop culture reference or situations that people often find themselves in, that users each make their own caption for,” says junior Kyle Hanko, a frequent poster on the Iona Memes page. “Each meme has its own personality, such as ‘Socially Awkward Penguin,’ whose caption involves situations that we all find ourselves in.”

First gaining popularity in recent years on websites such as Reddit and 4Chan, the internet meme craze has been fanatically adopted by undergraduates only over the last two weeks. So, why is there sudden meme mania amongst college students?

“[Memes] are like inside jokes for the students about their respective schools,” says meme aficionado junior Andrew Hastings. “They provide a way to express any issues or problems you have with the school or just to make fellow students laugh about something that is unique to your campus, class or any situation.”

The most popular memes on the Iona page are concepts any Gael around campus can relate to after a similar experience at Iona. Whether mimicking the great Iona housing crisis, campus catering, Internet woes, professor quirks or Iona students themselves, meme creators use the page as a medium to sarcastically reference ideas, experiences and behaviors that only Iona students, staff and alumni would appreciate.

When asked how he comes up with his popular memes, sophomore Alberto Minnocci said, “When I try to make a meme, I just think about things that have happened to me that others can relate to, like Rose overcharging me in Spellman or waving at someone who wasn’t waving at me personally. I don’t think these experiences are funny until I make the meme and find out others have had similar experiences.”

Yet, like all good things, there are consequences—and for college meme pages, those consequences are the incorrect usage of memes. Like other college pages, the Iona Meme users have gone on the offensive trying to dissuade people from making mediocre memes.

“Unfortunately, a lot of students have just found out about memes from the Facebook page and a lot of them use memes incorrectly, which has sparked a new wave of memes making fun of the bad ones,” said Hanko.

Still, veteran meme lovers and meme makers are confident in the continued success of the Iona Meme page and the college meme madness in general. As students become familiar with the memes, it is only expected that more students will participate in the fun only adding to the rising likes for the Iona Meme page—which has 540 likes as of the writing of this article.

“You don’t need to be an artist to make a funny meme,” says Minnocci. “If you spend time on sites such as memebase, you’ll see that some memes are not artistically done, but are still absolutely hilarious.”

So Gaels, get on Facebook, like Iona Memes, visit memegenerator, quickmeme or diylol and join in on the meme mania!