By Angelica Beneke
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

This week’s chosen Hofstra meme is what I’ll call, “The Fire Drill Meme.” The original poster (who I will call OP from here on out) posted a picture of a page from a novel. It is the first page of the first chapter and the chapter begins with, “The building was on fire and it wasn’t my fault.” This picture is fascinating by itself, but the caption that the meme creator provides makes it even more so: “When they hit you with that 8 a.m. fire drill ‘okay emoji.’”

So, let’s break this meme down.

First off, the pronoun “they” in the caption. Who is they? My guess is that “they” is the system, specifically the system designed to infuriate college students. Who is the system? Your guess is as good as mine. My guess is capitalism. Whoever is supposed to constitute “they” seems very violent if they’re hitting people.

The next part – “8 a.m. fire drill.” Now there’s an interesting time. Why 8 a.m.? Why not 1 a.m. or 9 p.m.? My guess is that the 8 a.m. is not the precise time this fire drill happened, rather it is representative of the last unacceptable hour to wake up. I understand they’re students who willingly get up and have energy at hours before 8 a.m., even without the aid of the magical substance (coffee), aka morning people.

But then again, those type of people terrify me. I tend to stay away from them, if I can.

Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m very skeptical of the drill in “8 a.m. fire drill.” Who in their right mind has a fire drill when everyone is half-asleep? Something had to have been on fire at that hour.

That’s another thing. Why do we as Hofstra students call them fire drills and not evacuations if and when they’re really not drills if they happen at ungodly hours? Maybe we call them drills to reduce the whole thing as a mere inconvenience to our sleeping schedules and nothing more.

And, if something was on fire, was it the actual building, as the picture from the novel indicates? Did the physical building actually burn down? I suppose not since we didn’t hear about it. So the building must have been metaphorically on fire from the rage of the students having to get up at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. or whenever that happened.

Speaking of the photo, I’d like to explain what I think that means. I’ve already raised the question of did the building literally or metaphorically burn. But, the fact that part of a novel was used for this meme is fascinating. The assumed opening of the novel is written in the first person and has very conversational language. It is, what do the young’ins call it? Oh, right. #relatable.

Which means there’s a meme (#relatable) within a meme (the Hofstra Fire Drill meme). In otherwords, memeception.

Yes, 2017 is nearly over and you’re running into an “Inception” meme. You’re welcome.

Moving on.

The OP’s use of, “it wasn’t my fault,” implies that there have been times when these drills – but probably actual fires – have been their fault. Or maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe it’s not their fault and it’s a “stick it to the man” statement. Maybe they have been falsely accused over and over, and out of irritation of these false accusations based on a few characteristics they say, “It’s NOT my fault.” If that’s so, more power to you, OP.

Or it could be a comment on their friendships. I know whenever I have to walk out of my residence hall because of a fire “drill,” I always hear, “Dude, did you set off the fire alarm?” from at least one guy. It never fails. So, it’s possible that OP has That One Friend™ who always blames them for the fire alarm going off when there’s no possible way that could’ve happened.

Yeah, I think it might be that.

Finally, the use of “the okay emoji”. I really don’t know what to make of this. I only see this whenever I see the, “when you [verb] just right” meme. Seeing that emoji without those words confused me a lot. What’s the point of including that emoji if you’re not going to use them? Unless the OP’s intent was for that emoji to be a symbol for those words. Which would bring the grand meme total in this meme to three.

The tri-meme.

It’s not my all-time favorite meme, but I applaud the cleverness and the emotional roller coaster it put me on.

Good meme. Very thought out. Wow. 60/10.