Examination Spawns Esoteric Memes
October 19, 2017
The internet seems to be able to make anything hilarious these days. Its most recent fixation: standardized testing.
The annual administration of the PSAT sparked an odd trend of posting cryptic snippets of test passages and topics in meme form online.
Junior Tristan Blair, who took the PSAT last week, said that the memes are so humorous because they’re only a select few—test takers—are privy to their meaning.
“I think it’s the exclusivity of it, because jokes are funny when people know the joke and other people don’t,” Blair said.
Junior Garrett Short, another test taker, attributed his enjoyment of the memes to their rebellious nature.
“They probably completely disobey the rules that the people told us,” he said.
In fact, the verbal instructions given on the day of the test state that any distribution of test questions online in any form can result in “score cancellation or other possible sanction.”
However, according to Blair, not many people took this warning seriously.
“The day of, already people were walking out and saying ‘Don’t share anything about the PSAT’ and making subtle jokes,” Blair said. “People were squatting down being like, ‘Hey, can I take your picture?’ or talking about tomatoes and toothbrushes.”
Short didn’t think that the jokes, which are so cryptic to the everyday individual, were necessarily dangerous, however.
“Well, they really didn’t cause any harm, because it wasn’t the actual question that was revealed,” Short said. “It was just part of a question, so I’m O.K. with it.”
Besides, Short said, it would be hard for the College Board to fight back against them.
“Most of (those who posted) were anonymous accounts, so they’re not going to be able to figure out who it was,” Short said. “There were so many of them that it would be hard to crack down.”
Anyway, the memes will die soon enough, according to Blair, ending the College Board’s woes.
“Definitely, the jokes are going to get old,” Blair said. “It was fun while it lasted, though.”