The pandemic era of university life at Carleton University has been defined by an influx of quirky Instagram accounts targeting students, which seem to cover everything from affirmations for Carleton students to daily ratings of residence cafeteria meals.
Though many of these accounts have hundreds or even thousands of followers, their owners have remained largely anonymous.
They walk among us on campus. They look just like us. They sit among us in lectures. But in the digital world, these students run your favourite weird, eccentric Carleton Instagram accounts.
The Charlatan sat down with three owners of unusual, Carleton-related Instagram accounts to discuss the ins and outs of being an anonymous “internet microcelebrity.”
Carleton Affirmations (@carletonaffirmations)
account makes her feel like a “niche internet microcelebrity.” [Photo from @carletonaffirmations]
“Something that unifies a community in so many cases is complaining,” Rumfeldt said. She added she believes in “having fun with all the individual quirks of your university.”
She said most of her posts are inspired by her and her friends’ inconveniences, such as online classes or the crowded university gym, but the account has also accepted submissions from other students in the past.
In order to curate a “unified aesthetic” for her posts, Rumfeldt uses a number of apps, including Glitter Photo, Kawaii and Google Images.
Rumfeldt said the feedback she gets from her nearly 1,000 followers is overwhelmingly positive. She has even made a number of friends by messaging people through the account, she said.
“People like it,” she said. “I really like validation from other people, so that’s really nice.”
This took her by surprise.
“I expected to receive more hate because I think if you’re public-facing, people will be haters,” she said.
But that hasn’t been the case for Rumfeldt, who basks in the glory of running one of the most followed Carleton-themed Instagram meme accounts.
“My favourite part was feeling like a niche internet microcelebrity,” Rumfeldt said. “I described myself as that, and it was fantastic.”
One Carleton Cafeteria Meal a Day (@onecarletoncafmealaday)
beans and corn, has stood out as the worst. [Photo from @onecarletoncafmealaday]
“As I was applying for this school, and as I wanted to [find out more about residence], the one thing I could never really find was a picture of the food at the caf,” Kannon said. “I figured it could be useful to someone.”
“Originally … I’d just take a picture and post it immediately,” Kannon said. “But more recently, I’ve been posting more occasionally, since things have gotten a bit busier.”
Kannon said his criteria for rating meals on a scale of one to 10 is simply based on how he feels at the moment.
Kannon said he doesn’t receive a lot of feedback from his few followers, aside from occasional comments that “the rating is too high,” or that certain foods look unappetizing.
Of every meal he’s documented thus far, Kannon said his Sept. 8 post, which featured chicken, rice and a mix of beans and corn, has stood out as the worst.
“That was pretty gross,” he said. “The picture doesn’t look too visually [appealing] either.”
Carleton Memes (@memes.carleton)
Samuel Futhey, a fifth-year global and international studies student, took over the university’s most-followed meme account in September 2021.
On a typical day, Futhey said he tries to “come up with another post that would actually be entertaining enough to get a response from [his] audience,” while also engaging with smaller Carleton-related pages.
“Honestly, some of them are hilarious,” Futhey said. “I’ll go through some of their posts, make a comment here and there, maybe send them a [direct message] recommending a few things, if I think they could be doing something better.”
Futhley said the posts that see the most engagement are the ones that he puts a lot of effort into or that are relevant to current events, such as his Panda Game and Glengarry fire alarm memes.
While Futhey said he almost always ends up posting the submissions he receives from other Carleton students, he doesn’t want to post memes that lack creativity or are “derivative.”
“I’m not trying to take a side in recent events,” Futhey said in response to those who don’t find his content funny. “I’m simply trying to use [the memes] as a way to make people laugh and realize that hey, the world is a horrible place a lot of the time, but you can still find humour wherever you look.”
