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Davis, California

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Meme Facebook page inspires group screaming event

HANNAH LEE / AGGIE

Students de-stress before finals

A group of over 100 students congregated on the Quad on March 20 to join together and scream in order to let off steam before their impending Winter Quarter final exams.

The event began as a joke, created by a UC Davis student who runs the UC Davis Memes Facebook page. After almost 2,000 students responded that they would be coming to the event, the creator of the page decided to actually organize it.

Students were encouraged to take a break from studying, bring their own deteriorating mental health, and participate in the event to take their minds off of finals, according to the event’s Facebook page.

“I totally thought it was going to be a joke, I think a lot of people thought that at first,” said Victoria Susman, a second-year wildlife, fish and conservation biology major who attended the event with friends.

Immediately after the event, Susman went back to locking herself in the library’s 24-hour study room.

“It was just nice to let go of so much pent up energy and stress with people who were also equally stressed as you,” Susman said. “Something that really struck me was how friendly everyone was. I think we were all united in a mutual pain of finals week.”

The creator of the UC Davis Memes page usually posts jokes and content uniquely catered to students at UC Davis. Meme topics range from the lack of forks at the Dining Commons to students’ daily, near-death encounters in the bike circles. During the weeks leading up to finals, the creator tailored content to the stress rising around campus as students anxiously prepared for final exams.

The creator of the popular Facebook page hopes these jokes, beyond being occasional distractions for students, can actually bring people together.

“I really want people to be able to laugh about all the crap they have to deal with in school and hopefully through humor feel a bit better about themselves,” said the creator of the memes page, a second-year student who preferred to remain anonymous. “It felt really good to have this community event where we all acknowledged we were suffering during finals and that we were kind of in it together.”

Andrew Kielak, a second-year agricultural business major, attended the event and embraced the humor of being one of more than 100 students gathered together to scream. Kielak was impressed by the number of students who showed up for the event.

“People actually went to an event created by a meme page,” Kielak said.

When asked if the event would continue as a quarterly tradition, Kielak said, “Davis does plenty of weird things already, might as well add one more.”

Behind the scenes of the synchronized screaming heard around the UC Davis campus was second-year animal science major Jamie Burns. Burns worked closely with her friend, the creator of the UC Davis Memes Facebook page, to act as the event’s coordinator.

“In order to keep my friend’s name a secret I tried to help lead the event and get a countdown to scream at the same time,” Burns said. “It was a fun, weird experience and hopefully it remains a quarterly tradition.”

After the successful turnout, Burns looks forward to organizing a Spring Quarter screaming event before finals and hopes the event continues as a new, quirky UC Davis tradition.
Written by: Ally Russell — campus@theaggie.org

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