Meet Sam Afflu, Rutgers’ very own meme

If you go to Rutgers, you’ve probably seen hilarious posts from the iconic Sam Afflu, the most recognizable one being pictures of him posing on a pool table with a rose in his mouth. You may have even seen some of his Facebook posts featured here on The Tab Rutgers.

We sat down with Sam, a senior at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences majoring in Biotechnology to learn more about the meme’s origin, popularity, and how it has affected him. We also learned that he’s literally one of the nicest people ever – Sam showed up to the interview with roses.

So how did all these memes start?

“It was about two years ago – some girls made a post about sex, and I was like, “Oh, do I have a funny reaction picture to this?” So I put the image there and said, ‘Did somebody say, sex?’ And people liked it so I said, okay I could do this again, and it just spiraled out of control and here we are.”

Where did that picture even come from?

“I was giving out roses on Valentine’s Day, just like the ones you have right now, I was in McCormick actually. And I thought, you know what would be funny? If I started posing on things like you see in GQ Magazine. So I got the pool table, I took everything off, and I posed on it. My friend cropped that image, and now that’s the meme you see today.”

The roses Sam brought me

Now you use it in all kinds of situational contexts that are relevant to Rutgers, like if something’s happening on campus?

“If it’s relevant and if I think it’s funny. Like how a lot of YouTubers make their videos; it’s how I try to make my jokes and memes. I will only post something if I find it funny myself, and I’m not going to post constantly or spam people just so I can be like, ‘Hey! Notice me!’ because that’s just very annoying and nobody likes that. I only post when I feel it’s necessary, whether that’s once a week, once a month, it really depends, because I do have a life outside of this.”

The first time it happened – was it sort of an ego boost?

“Eh, the first time it happened it was just really surprising. I’ve never let it become an ego boost because I find that when you let something like this get to your head, it begins to lose the very thing that made it good quality.”

Do people ever recognize you?

“It happens a lot. I didn’t think it would happen so much. It happened in class, in the dorms, in the bathroom – that was weird – at a bubble tea place, it happens all over the place. I usually get a lot of stares and I’m like ‘Oh, Lord – did I do something wrong? Is there something on my face?’ And then they’ll be like ‘Aren’t you that guy?’ and I’m like, ‘…What guy?’ And I’ll start looking around the room and then they’ll be like ‘That guy who poses,’ and then I realize and I’m just like ‘yeah, that’s me.”

You’ve become a legend in a way.

“In a manner of speaking, yeah – it’s nice, it’s just you never really expect something like that. I’m just a guy who posts things on the internet, like anyone can do that. I tell people all the time, you just need to have a sense of humor and be confident in yourself and in what you’re posting. People are pretty forgiving.”

That’s good that you haven’t let it define you, because then you’d be THAT GUY on campus.

“It’s fun, I like making people laugh. But it’s just a small part of my life. Keeping it up all the time would be too much work.”