AS MIDTERMS APPROACH, more and more University of Ottawa and Carleton University students are abandoning their books. Why, you ask? To participate in an all-out Facebook meme war, which is gaining increased attention by the day.
It all started with a Facebook group called “B!tch Please. I go to the University of Ottawa,” on which U of O students posted humourous pictures targeting Carleton and its student body. As these pictures circulated between students and through other online groups, Carleton U students retaliated. Less than 24 hours after the original anti-Carleton pictures were posted, a page called “Carleton Pride” debuted on Facebook and gathered over 1,200 likes.
Two days into this epic battle, most following the feud on Facebook have started to become annoyed by the on-going war. As a wise man once told me, “Words are just words unless you give them a meaning.” What started off as witty entertainment has now turned into more than anyone had anticipated.
Though tedious, this meme war is not totally pointless, but it is gradually becoming nothing more than a child’s game. In Canada, a country where education is considered a right, we have a bunch of supposedly mature adults arguing about whose university is better like kids fighting over whose father is the strongest.
There are people the world over who would do anything to have the same opportunity Canadian students have to study at post-secondary institutions. What are we doing with this amazing gift of education? Arguing about rivalry-fuelled gossip.
Are we so self-centred that we’ve forgotten how fortunate we are to have access to these institutions? Who cares if a program offered at the U of O is better than the one offered at Carleton U, or vice versa? No one does. What matters is what you learned and how you apply it, not where you learned it.
It would be sad to see this meme war deteriorate the positive relations the campuses have with each other. U of O and Carleton U have a healthy sports rivalry and I hope it stays that way. We are the best educational institutions in the National Capital Region, and there is no need for our students to argue over such pathetic drivel.
Open your minds and learn to laugh at yourselves. You’re about to hit the job market and a bad attitude isn’t what you should be taking with you into it.
—Raza Amir
