Culture Editor, Sasha Khan, meets with the creator of the infamous ‘Teh Univursity of Susex’ Facebook page, the meme master of campus.
Q: For readers who are not familiar, can you explain what this page is?
A: For those who may not know what the page is, the page is a parody page which posts humours videos and pictures, made by my myself, often relating to life here at The University of Sussex.
Q: Where do you source your material from?
A: The content on the page often comes from material taken straight from The University of Sussex’s youtube channel or website which I then edit/alter. The other place I source material from is various viral videos, such as the John Lewis Christmas Advert. I take these videos and make them Sussex related. I try to come up with original material for the page, if University has taught me anything it’s that plagiarism won’t be tolerated.
Q: Much of the page’s humour comes from banter and not taking things too seriously. To what extent do you think this is important with humour becoming increasingly pressured to be ‘politically correct’?
A: I think it’s really important for comedy to push the boundaries and not take itself too seriously. I also think it’s important for people to not take comedy too seriously either. There’s a lot of pressure to be ‘politically correct’ in everyday situations, and I think comedy is a chance to get away from that aspect of modern day life. However, you can’t go around insulting people and calling it “banter”, so I try to make content that won’t offend a lot of people. Comedy doesn’t have to be offensive to be funny.
Q: The page has over 3,000 likes and a huge level of popularity and dialogue. Do you think this disproves the stigma that the internet is depersonalised and uncommunicative?
A: I think some parts of the internet are depersonalised and other parts aren’t. I think the content that I make is personal to University of Sussex students as the page material is made purposefully relatable to them, therefore they share the content, tag their friends etc. I think this disproves the idea that the internet is uncommunicative – students interact with each other on the page, as well as interacting with me.
Q: How long has the page been running? Was it passed down to you, or started by yourself?
A: I created the page in mid November 2015, I’m the only one to run the page so far and I create all of it’s content.
Q: The page is anonymously run- can you explain the decision behind choosing to be unknown, and what advantages do you think this gives?
A: The page wasn’t initially created with anonymity in mind, but I much prefer to be anonymous. Being anonymous allows me to make and release content without it being attributed to me personally. Knowing who is behind content can really affect how its seen. When content does well I know it’s the content that people like, and that’s the thing that is important to me with regards to the page.