At least two professors have reached a small level of Internet fame: They have become the subject of memes. Professor Nygmet Ibadilding was recently featured on an Instagram meme page account saying “I wish Nygmet talked on topic more and yapped less.”
When he learned of the meme, he responded in the comments, saying “Thank you, well noted, I will yapp less”
“I think a feed planted it because I’m subscribed to some of my students,” he said. “, I didn’t specifically look for it, it just came up and I watched it.”
Some students initially feared that the memes might offend Ibadildin, but then they rallied behind him by creating the hashtag #justicefornygmet as a sign of support. It was a small Instagram victory.
Ibadilding said he wasn’t offended by the meme and that he has made a few memes as well.
Similarly, Lecturer Ayaz Talantuly embraced meme humor and even showed a meme about himself during a recent class. Students liked his cultural studies class so much, they decided to capture it in one of their memes.
Two public Instagram accounts, @kimepians, and @mimep_university, have slowly gained popularity by sharing content about life at KIMEP. @Kimepians has more than 1,000 followers, and focuses on student life, while the @mimep_university, with half as many followers, covers academic experiences. Students said they like the posts and often see their own experiences and perceptions reflected, creating a sense of connection and community.
Memes have become a generational form of communication that often pokes fun at everyday occurrences. They have been around long before the Internet in the form of cartoons and commentary. Online, though, they can spread across the globe as fast as an electron can move. KIMEP, it turns out, is not protected from this phenomenon.
KIMEP students appear to be engaged with both accounts. @mimep_university has 673 followers, 56% of those who follow it, also follow @KIMEP_University, the official account of KIMEP, according to Instagram. @kimepians has 1,189 followers, and 62% also follow @KIMEP_University.
“(The posts) often depict everyday experiences I relate to,” said Gulnur Adanbekova, a fourth-year student. “Funny memes effectively represent our collective student experiences.”
“I find these memes funny,” said Sabina Tursunbayeva, a fourth-year student. “But not because I personally relate to them. I understand the culture, even if it is not really my thing. They tend to promote a party lifestyle, which is not something I am into.”
Memes can both reinforce existing societal stereotypes and be shaped by them, highlighting the reciprocal relationship between online culture and real-world perceptions, said one KIMEP psychology lecturer, adding that they can also potentially offend some students and possibly tarnish the university’s reputation.
“I think some students may find some of the memes offensive, so therefore may hurt their feelings,” said Psychology Lecturer Tracy Darch-Hall, after examining memes from the Instagram pages. “Another thing that I noticed when looking at the examples was that they might make students feel excluded.”
“Well I think when we look at memes,” she said, “we either connect with them or we don’t connect with them.”
Added Ibadilding, “They say that young people are getting dumber, that they don’t read, they look at these avatars, emoji. I think it’s also one of the ways of labeling reality.”
“I think memes are a very effective way of catching people’s attention,” Darch-Hall said. “But like I said, there are going to be parts of the KIMEP community that don’t connect with that kind of culture. Maybe they think it’s not academic enough, those kind of things.”
Indeed, many memes may never gain academic popularity, but some of them are still funny and create camaraderie, students said.
“These meme pages really capture what students are experiencing at university,” said Tursunbayeva. “It is important for students to have a space that connects them informally, without any interference from the administration.”
And for some, they’re just more memorable.“People remember pretty pictures more anyway,” Ibadilding said.