After a long battle spanning several days, junior Jacob Tellas had won the war. Not a physical war, but an online war. More specifically, a war against friends involving the creation of memes on social media.

Memes (pronounced meems) have become a staple of Internet culture in recent years, ranging from the classic image with impact font text on it to things that make almost no sense at all, with or without context. Sometimes they serve a purpose, but most of the time they merely exist to get a laugh out of people.

After winning three meme wars against his friend, Satire Editor Logan Flake, Tellas saw that people enjoyed his memes and created an Instagram account dedicated to making memes that poke fun at Flake. He mostly makes memes featuring Flake but occasionally creates others as well.

“They’re kind of slightly edgy, but people who have a sense of humor just think they’re funny,” Tellas said.

Tellas says he creates memes as a way to pass the time, but that he also just enjoys making people laugh. He says that people sometimes get offended by his memes, but he ignores it and sticks to making people laugh.

“It’s funny to laugh at people, and it’s funny to laugh just in general,” Tellas said.

Memes have been making appearances in SHS classrooms recently as well. Social Studies teacher Daniel Jones is a self-proclaimed amateur meme maker, according to his Twitter profile. He has been creating memes for his classes since his second year of teaching AP Human Geography, which was around six or seven years ago.

The memes around his classroom, mainly posted on a large bulletin board on the classroom wall, serve both a comedic and educational purpose, such as one that says “I got 99 problems out of 100 right on my AP Psych exam.”

“I do it just to keep my students intrigued, because I know they like it,” Jones said. “It also kind of creates a climate of belonging.”

Jones says that students of his have created memes relating to the classes as well, furthering his belief of memes bringing the group together in what he calls a “mematic experience.” The memes also help students remember the content of Jones’ classes, such as one that says “Beats by Dre” and differentiates between two types of hearing loss that are covered in AP Psychology.

According to Jones, he’s been slacking in his creation of memes and still has a few to laminate and hang up. He always strives to make them better and seems to have no intention of stopping anytime soon.

“Some of them are funny, but some of them are educational,” Jones said. “And some of them actually convey a message about doing work and things along that line.”