Beginning as an Instagram account meant to poke fun at the former San Luis Obispo mayor, Heidi Harmon, the San Luis Obispo locals who ran @wizardsofslo (“Wizards”) had no idea that they would precede a wave of similar “Cal Poly meme accounts” two years later.
“I do not know of any older [accounts]. We definitely pioneered it” said Bird, the pseudonym of one of the creators of the Wizards account.
Meme accounts are social media accounts, usually on Instagram, that exclusively post humorous content and are usually run by an anonymous administrator, colloquially known as an “admin.” Many admins use pseudonyms to differentiate their identities while remaining anonymous. The distinction between Cal Poly/SLO-related meme accounts and general meme accounts is that they focus on content related to the Cal Poly community or the San Luis Obispo area.
“There wasn’t a market for [SLO memes] so I saw a need, because there was so much random bullshit always happening in SLO, we needed to make a meme out of it,” Bird said in reference to why they decided to make SLO-specific content.
Wizards’ first post in January 2019 was a “wojak,” a type of internet meme that gained popularity in 2010. The wojak is depicted as a person with orange hair, microbangs, and a choker that says “r u going to the show at the chlorophyll cave later?” The meme was meant to poke fun at a stereotype of people in the SLO DIY music community by referencing the Chlorophyll Cave, a now-defunct DIY music venue.
Since late 2020, new Cal Poly-oriented meme accounts, such as @jeffysjuicylover, @calpolyandballtorture, @officialcampusbottle, and @sl.ench began cropping up on Instagram.
Max Bosse, who is a Cal Poly biomedical engineering junior and the admin of an account called @calpolybarbz, which is meant to connect the local community of Nicki Minaj fans, commented on this trend.
“I think the rise [in meme accounts being created] was mostly from admitted freshman students during the pandemic; most Cal Poly meme accounts were started by freshmen at the time I believe. People were on social media so much more than before and had the free time to make funny content,” Bosse said.
Other Cal Poly meme accounts functioned as a tool for Cal Poly students to feel more connected when moving back to SLO after the covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
“It’s easy to feel alone in a large university, and there has been a huge wave of socialization since we came back to in-person school in Fall 2021. While some folks have Greek Life and others have cultural clubs, we found that we can attract like-minded people through our account. It’s awesome to see how many funny, hot, and intelligent folx follow our page and interact with us,” said “perv admin” of @officialcampusbottle.
Similarly to Wizards, many of these new wave meme accounts use their platform to critique trends that only SLO locals would understand through the experience of living in the area.
“There were a lot of subcultures, habits of SloCals, and events on campus that needed to be humbled or poked fun at- namely WavZine, house shows, Honeyboys, Campus Market chicken tenders, Hub24, engineers, Frank’s Hot Dogs, Perfumo canyon hookups etc.” said perv admin.
Additionally, the accounts serve as a platform to comment on real local issues in a humorous way. For example, @jeffysjuicylover posted their first meme in July 2020 featuring a video of Cal Poly president Jeffrey Armstrong. In the video, Armstrong is depicted between three mannequins that say “fire Granberry Russell,” “ban chik fil a from campus,” and “lower fall tuition due to online classes from covid” while the song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd plays. A nod to the 2016 “Mannequin Challenge,” in which participants stand still while the aforementioned song plays, the admin used this video to critique Armstrong for his lack of action on these problems within the Cal Poly community.
The effects of these internet posts extended beyond Instagram to impact the community in real life. Wizards created a meme in which they edited Airpods onto Harmon in reference to a meme of Squidward called “The Truck’s Coming/Oh My God He Has His Airpods In.” According to The Tribune, Harmon claimed she was being threatened online, interpreting this Wizards post to “[suggest] her death with a bus hitting her.”
“We definitely contributed to [Harmon’s] resignation. We started out just making fun of the Chlorophyll Cave and Linnaea’s, but we ended in a blaze of glory,” Bird said.
These accounts tend to evolve with the admins who run them. Many of the accounts, such as @wizardsofslo and @calpolyandballtorture, stopped posting as their admins moved away or graduated.
“CPBT [calpolyandballtorture] stopped posting because of the intensely weird vibe shift they created. Also 2/4 admins graduated.” said an insider who would like to remain anonymous.
This article was originally written in the spring of 2023, so many of the meme accounts mentioned have since stopped actively posting. However, the accounts and all their posts remain on Instagram as a vestige of the specific time and place that their content represents. Since many of the venues, organizations, or characters mentioned on these accounts might now be defunct or irrelevant, the posts serve as a community-wide inside joke for anyone living in San Luis Obispo for the past couple of years.
Maile Gardner is a member of our editorial team. She wrote the article. Kathleen Dunbar is a member of our art team. She made the graphic.
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