Meet the Director: Meme with Bernie

In March, CIS organized a Meet the Director event with community members of CIS and students of FNIS 454. But it wouldn’t be your average meetand-greet. We would be making memes.

Memes can make us chuckle and bring a smile to our faces, but they might also serve as archives or references for the generations that will come after us and wonder about what it was like during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the event began, CIS Director Bernard Perley explained “This is an important year in our collective lives. We are living through an historic moment. How will we remember it?”

Students, staff and faculty were divided into five “teams” according to various themes to guide their meme making. The themes included: “Online School and Graduation,” “Friendship in the time of COVID-19,” and “Adventures in Zoom bombing/Zoom background Information.”

In break-out rooms, teams used an online meme generator to brainstorm memes according to their theme. Then, we came back together for a show and tell! Ultimately, hilarious and creative memes were created, and so was a real sense of community. 