The social and cultural influence of a university meme Facebook page has reached new levels today, as the Instagram location tag for the University's Wills Memorial Building has been changed to 'Wills Meme-orial Building'.
One of the features of the popular social networking app Instagram allows users to tag the location of their pictures so their followers can keep up-to-date with their whereabouts. The app also groups together all pictures taken in a specified location so users from across the globe can see images from precise locations.
Evidence of the Instagram location tag change.
The Wills Memorial Building, which was threatened with a name-change early this year due to 'a petition that argued for the removal of names of individuals or families who were directly or indirectly associated with slavery', has seen a change in its Instagram location tag. Users can now tag their pictures with 'Wills Meme-orial Building' - a reference to a popular meme page circulating Facebook - as the original tag - 'Wills Memorial Building' - has been replaced.
A 'meme', a term coined by Richard Dawkins, is a viral Internet image, video, or text which is usually humorous or evokes some feeling of relatability, which is then rapidly copied and spread by Internet users. The 'Wills Meme-orial Building' page adapts current memes so they are specifically related to students at the University of Bristol.
Some memes satirise the student experience - here, Eduroam (the University's WiFi network) is the target.
According to Instagram, anyone with a Facebook page can create an Instagram location tag, 'Public location pages on Facebook can be added to your Instagram posts. If the location you're looking for doesn't currently exist, you can create a new one on Facebook.'
'To create a new location, log into Facebook on your smartphone and create the location. Once you've created the location on Facebook, you'll be able to add it to your Instagram posts.'
Popular fast food joint Taka Taka is a regular feature on the Wills Meme-orial page.
It is unknown if this change was purposely inflicted by a meme-crazy student, or whether this was a technological hiccup on Instagram's behalf.
Third year Engineering Maths student and meme connoisseur Rory Hicks has responded to this news, 'I guess I'm glad that after years of struggle, memes are finally where they deserve to be - at the forefront of the University'.
What do you think of this name-change? Let us know in the comments or via social media.
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