For the love of memes: We spoke to students behind UCL’s most popular meme page

@memesofucl is currently running the first-ever UCL meme competition


When the times get rough, the deadlines pile up, and your laptop home screen becomes intolerable with clusters of unread articles you wanted to reference, there’s still something guaranteed to bring you a snicker or a smile: uni meme pages.

The London Tab previously spoke to CJ, the man behind the King’s meme page KCL Banter. But behold: the rivalry continues. Allow us to introduce you to the students and stories behind UCL’s most popular meme page, @memesofucl.

‘All you can think of is how your life is a meme’

It turns out the page, arguably UCL’s pride and joy, is not the work of one creative genius but several. They are, in their words, “quite a diverse bunch when you look at our degrees and where we come from.”

While they didn’t expose any of the collective’s personal details, they explained that the simple “love of memes” brings them together. Aw.

@memesofucl started out, unsurprisingly, as a product of procrastination. But it also came about upon the realisation that, as a student drowning in work, “all you can think of is how your life is a meme.”

For example, they explained that the meme below was inspired by the regular occurrence of walking into the student centre only to find “not a single desk free, and the ones that are available have pieces of paper or friends hoarding seats.”

What a major “art-imitates-life” moment.

Another example would be the following meme born during “an iconic time where every university was closing due to the risk of the pandemic, and UCL was one of the few that kept the university until the last moment.”

The students think “this obviously caused a lot of panic in the student community and highlighted quite a bizarre moment in UCL’s history.” And we are all for the way they addressed the issue so creatively and hilariously.

In addition to original creations, the students also post submissions from followers and other content creators (psst…including The London Tab) on the page. 

But overall: KCL slander, UCL banter, and the occasional iconic Coldplay reference basically sum up the humour of @memesofucl. And when you are a UCL student, this never really gets old. However dark the days get, at least we know we are better than King’s.

#BleedPurple.

‘We are just trying to have fun’

With more than 18k followers, it is clear that no other account will usurp @memesofucl as UCL’s unofficial “official meme page.”

Despite having gone big, the group maintains that the page, which started off just “as a joke between a couple of friends,” is a labour of love more than anything else and that they “have as much fun making the memes as our audience.”

And when asked about whether they worry about contenders to their status as the uni’s best and favourite meme page, the students said: “No, we don’t worry about competition, we are not a business, and we are just trying to have fun.

“We do some promotional posts here and there, but we are students who don’t get paid for running the page, so anything to help with the cost of living is obviously appealing to us.”

While it is not from a place of competition, the students are still looking to expand the venture. For example, they have launched a sister confessions account @overheardatucl, which now has an impressive number of more than 5.5k followers.

They told The London Tab: “We have seen many confession pages during our time at UCL, but we wanted to make sure this was one where the quality of the posts is maintained. This does mean we have to censor and make a judgement of what to post, but our whole motto has always been quality over quantity.

“It seems to be going well with our engagement, and we have started posting additional submissions on our story @overheardatucl. So head there if you want to make an overheard submission – we are your eyes and ears on campus.”

Another way they are trying to innovate is by starting new initiatives on these accounts, which they think are both “now pretty well established.” 

“Our first initiative will be a UCL Meme Competition – if you are interested in competing, please do reach out to us @memesofucl. There’s a very special prize for the winner, so all the reasons to get involved!

“Aside from this, we are looking into the possibility of hosting some in-person events as well as merchandise,” they said.

In the end, students behind @memesofucl said that all they want is to “continue bringing smiles to the faces of UCL students and keep the community united, in love and hate of UCL.”

So, for those who love great memes (or just fancy slandering the student experience), be sure to follow @memesofucl and @overheardatucl to keep up with the wonderful things they have in store for students at UCL and beyond!

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