President Mark Maloof started this trend by issuing an executive order the first week back from break. It called for a review and subsequent revisions to the financial bylaws, which were rewritten over the summer. Maloof said that his decision was based on a number of complaints from student clubs and organizations. The problems some clubs have faced are real and solutions are necessary.

Restrictive caps on how much clubs are able to spend on guest speakers have meant that “mid-sized events,” as Maloof refers to them, have been next to impossible for anyone but the Student Activities Board to hold.

Treasurer Thomas Kirnbauer, who helped write the bylaws, has shown that he is receptive to change. He’s also exhibited his dedication to improving the way USG handles the process in which it assigns budgets to each club by offering to shoulder more work than the previous treasurer did.

The town halls that President Maloof called for were an encouraging sign that USG is actively pursuing better communication with clubs and is genuinely interested in which regulations are causing clubs the most stress.

Unfortunately, the two meetings were sparsely attended, to say the least. At Thursday’s meeting, a Press reporter was the only one to show up besides Treasurer Kirnbauer.

USG certainly could have better advertised the town halls. The dates and times were not posted on their website and if clubs were sent emails containing said information, The Press wasn’t lucky enough to receive one.

Incredibly, USG didn’t shy away after the experience. In a room packed full of club officers, Kirnbauer announced the date of yet another town hall in the hopes that students would show up to this one.

When it was literally a situation of life or death for a few clubs, Kirnbauer and the USG Senate were forgiving and quick to restore clubs’ ability to function. A provision in the financial bylaws, that didn’t exist last year, states that clubs that don’t hold events on campus will be stripped of their funding. When this happened to 15 clubs, the appropriate parties were contacted, a post was made on the USG website and the appeals process was clearly explained.

The senate acted responsibly by realizing that the new bylaws were far from perfect and that newer provisions, like the one affecting these clubs, were not well known. They voted to restore line budget status to each of the clubs, without condition. Kirnbauer helped them apply for new budgets and the senate approved, only opting for a five percent cut to all the clubs they had to restore.

The best idea, proposed by Senator Ryann Williams, would have been a case-by-case examination of why each club was unable to spend money during the fall semester, followed by a determination of if they deserved their full budget back, or if they deserved less. Sadly, the rest of the senate wasn’t interested.

The changes to the budget application process are even more promising, as they offer to systematically improve communication between clubs and the treasurer’s office.

Until this year, USG would meet with clubs once to determine their budget. Clubs would attend a hearing in which they requested a certain amount of money from a committee, and wouldn’t hear back until the final release of the budget for the next year.

Kirnbauer is changing that. His office will be sending clubs a draft budget before their hearings. The hearings wouldn’t be the first time that the two parties would be communicating and it would be a time for them to work out their differences. That’s fairer for clubs, even if it means more work for USG.

Then there’s Campusvine. By replacing Allocate with a far more comprehensive budget management service, USG is setting clubs up for success. The new program is designed to make filling out a voucher like filling out an order form online, complete with drop down menus and all.

What’s more, the program is designed like a social networking site. It has an in-site inbox synced to another inbox of the user’s choice. Club members will be able to communicate more effectively with both each other and USG. They’ll be able to track their vouchers through every step of the process. It’s what clubs needed and now it’s what they have.

Because of the two changes, the budget allocation process will look significantly different this year than in years past.

Kirnbauer told a Student Activities Center auditorium half-full of club officers that the new processes would give them “more of an opportunity to have [their voices] heard.”

First, Kirnbauer explained, clubs will submit a spreadsheet containing a detailed account of how much money they’ll need for the next academic year and how they intend to spend it. They’ll then receive a draft budget from the treasurer’s office in mid-March.

That process used to take place at the budget hearings. This year, the hearings will be used as a forum to discuss the draft budgets.

“By no means is it going to be the final budget that you’re going to be getting at the end of the year,” Kirnbauer said of the draft budgets. He indicated USG would be open to hearing clubs’ concerns and that clubs would be more aware of what their 2012-2013 budgets will be before they are announced.

“It’s not going to be a surprise to anyone at the end of the year,” he said.

He did, however, warn clubs that USG is “on a restrictive budget of three million dollars.”

“That we gave you,” quipped a student in the crowd.

But skepticism quickly turned to excitement when Allocate creator and Stony Brook alumnus Alex Dimitriyadi took the stage to introduce Campusvine, a drastic improvement on his original budget allocation software.

“Over the last year and a half now, we’ve been getting feedback anecdotally,” said Dimitriyadi, acknowledging the complaints the software had inspired. He also launched a survey on Allocate to learn what club officers most wanted from the site.

The results were displayed in word cloud for the club officers before Dimitriyadi went on to explain how the features would be incorporated into Campusvine.

It became clear that the software would be different from Allocate as soon as Dimitriyadi logged into the demo.

Campusvine features a dashboard with regular updates on vouchers and other notifications visible on the home page. A messaging feature in which club members could contact each other through Campusvine is included, as well. Club officers will also have access to a list of approved vendors and will be able to choose which email address notifications are sent to.

Josh Graham, the president of the bowling club on campus, has been through budget allocations before and he had struggled with Allocate.

“The budget isn’t there. They never update it, never tell you how much money they have left,” he said.

With Campusvine, that will change. There is a new tool that will allow officers to see how much of their budget has been spent and how much has been allocated and is awaiting USG approval.

“As you have more and more events, you can see how much money you have left and budget appropriately,” said Dimitriyadi when introducing the feature.

“I like it, actually. I’ll have see how it goes,” said Graham of the tool. He described the meeting as yet another success for USG.

“Every year they seem to do something to help out clubs a little bit,” he said.

The seminar went so well there was even a small miracle at the end.

“This is one of the most convincing USG events I’ve ever been to,” said Krissy Agathos, a WUSB host and student activist known as a harsh critic to everything USG does. “They’re finally doing stuff right,” she said.

It turned out that the Knicks played well in their old boxers. Jeremy Lin provided more ball movement; he helped the team breathe. He knows the game like you know those boxers. His play is creative, even if the headlines aren’t.

After the Knicks made a splash in the free agent market, we must ask: is JR Smith a boxer kind of guy? Now, I’m not a man of speculation, but I know the eyebrow threader who touched up the brows of the girl that served oatmeal at the continental breakfast in the hotel JR stayed at in Canada who is friends with the bellman who saw JR stroll through with shopping bags from Hugo Boss, a company that definitely sells briefs. The bellman didn’t get a really good look, but my friend said that he said they were either socks or briefs. Therefore, Smith wears briefs.

I will denounce this acquisition even after watching Smith come off the bench to drop 15 points in 30 minutes of play. He’s a bad-tempered, selfish player who has a notoriously Terrell Owensian ego while sharing Carmelo’s displeasure for sharing the rock. Also, this pick-up comes in the middle of a Lin gelling process. They had played like a bunch of portly, middle-aged dads from the YMCA for most of the season. Lin’s energy and passing prowess had the Knicks playing like a real, live basketball team and Smith can be the real fly in the proverbial potato salad.

That being said, we could use the depth in the small forward position. Bill Walker is a lousy backup. The only thing that amazes me more than his poor play is his Boyz II Men hairstyle choices.

I shudder to think of the day when Melo, Amare and Smith are on the same floor together. There aren’t enough basketballs in the world to run that offense. The trade is essentially undoing everything that Lin had brought together with his chemistry, math and book things. We could have had it all, rolling in the deep.

The short answer is no. Not because vandalism is right and just, but because I don’t want to read about Team Edward while I’m taking a tinkle. All it does is remind me of a multi-million-dollar-earning mediocre book series that is the glorified diary of a painfully average 14-year-old girl.

But every now and then, one finds bathroom graffiti gold. Scribbled in shades of baby blue, hot pink, and classic black, gems of wisdom such as “and just when the caterpillar thought the world was over he turned into a butterfly,” and “love won’t feed you –> it will feed your soul” capture your attention. Sometimes you even get lucky enough to find an impromptu wall mural. Who doesn’t want a little art with their toilet time, after all?

So while it pleases me to see quotes from brilliant films like Inception and Finding Nemo, and graffiti portraits of cuddly animals makes everyone else’s bathroom vandalism inadequate in comparison, it’s nearly becoming an epidemic. And the school’s janitors cannot be thrilled.

One must imagine that the janitorial staff cleans these messes up more often than they would like to. Sometimes the graffiti is not even painted over, but halfheartedly scrubbed from the walls, leaving behind faint streaks of highlighter and permanent marker. Is it frustration from a tedious task, or the lack of desire to rid a girl’s restroom of scrawled advice?

It is likely the former. The janitors don’t care about your favorite song quotes. They simply care about getting their job done. But it’s a repetitive cycle. It’s Einstein’s definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Vandals are always going to be painted over and janitors’ work is always going to be written on.

But if the graffiti is gone how am I going to determine the ratio between Edward and Jacob lovers? And how will I be reminded that all I need is love? When I’m feeling down-trodden I need the inspiring, recycled, clichés on the walls of restroom stalls to remind me that all life’s dilemmas can be solved with the reading of romantic comedy movie quotes.

Hélène Volat, Head of Reference & Information Services at the Melville Library, is opposed to this particular form of expression, calling it an “indelible form of writing.”

“When your poetry attains the quality and importance of Emily Dickinson or when your paintings rival those of Georgia O’Keefe, then we might reconsider. In the meantime you may want to practice on your own bathroom walls,” she said in an email.

However, I fear that this barbaric method of communication will not die, even with the critique of library staff. It seems we must settle for the bizarre, fluctuating state of cleanliness the bathroom stalls face. So if the masses can forgive these forlorn souls for their indiscretions, then allow me to implore all the vandals of Stony Brook not to throw a hissy fit about their most beloved quotes getting the ax. Instead, be grateful for the renewed chance at plagiarizing someone else’s creativity and inspiration. You can’t draw a new picture on your Etch-A-Sketch without erasing the old one first, after all.

When Mindy Mosher changed her major from computer science to studio art with a minor in digital arts, she didn’t expect to trade in the textbook expenses to which we are accustomed for costly, mandatory art supplies.

“It’s definitely way more expensive to be an art major than a computer science major,” she says.

The 30-year old senior spent $220 on supplies for a photography class last semester. The cost mostly covered film, negative sheets and paper. To her convenience, she didn’t have to buy a camera because she already had one. But for her digital arts class this semester, Mosher says her professor told her class to expect to spend about $300 on paper and ink.

For Mosher, these expenses are not easy to cover.

“I’m not made of money,” she says, adding that she’s not the only one complaining. “I hear this from every art student I’ve come in contact with.”

Most art courses at Stony Brook require students to purchase their own supplies in addition to paying a studio fee, which is supposed to go towards materials and equipment upkeep. From oil pastels to clay to photo paper, students can spend anywhere from $200 to $500 on art supplies per class, and the costs add up with every course a student takes. The university does provide chemicals, though.

Martin Levine, a printmaking professor and the undergraduate director for the art department, says students have been paying for supplies for years. Due in part to budget cuts, he says there aren’t enough funds to cover salaries and other expenses while also providing supplies for hundreds of students. There is not enough funding to offer scholarships, either. “It’s never going to happen with low tuition,” he says. “There’s just not enough money.”

There are also potential issues with providing every student with his or her own share of supplies, Levine says. Some students may use more paper or drawing materials than others, which would leave some with rations that last a whole semester and others empty-handed by midterms. There is also the possibility of students abusing the supplies by selling their surpluses.

Stony Brook is more than well-known for its focus on science and mathematics; it is a research university first and foremost. The faculty is layered with award-winning scholars, and the university fosters its own hospital and a relationship with Brookhaven National Laboratory. Numerous grants, awards and donations—including the $150 million Simons donation received last semester—have been dedicated to the advancements the students and faculty manage in mathematics, engineering, chemistry and biology. So much emphasis and priority is placed on these curricula that the smaller majors and minors studied at Stony Brook can easily be overlooked. Because of this reputation, and the fact that they have to buy their own supplies, many students like Mosher assume that art is underfunded compared to other majors.

According to last year’s University Operating Budget, art was one of the lowest funded departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. It received $2.1 million compared to $3.9 million for music, $2.4 million for English, $3.1 million for history and $2.9 million for political science, for example. Science departments, especially ones involving research, received anywhere from $5.1 million (geosciences) to $13.6 million (chemistry). For most departments, the majority of a budget is allocated for salaries, so the amount of faculty and staff is one factor that determines how much funding they receive. Some departments require several thousand dollars worth of equipment. Others, such as art, fund off-campus-affiliated facilities: the art department’s budget funds the Pollack-Krasner House and the Study Center in East Hampton, which the Stony Brook Foundation operates. Many departments also receive grants that the Foundation handles as well.

Levine says the art department has requested additional funding in the past, but the university never granted the requests, and a university budget representative declined to comment. However, for this academic year, according to the University Operating Budget, the art department receives more funding by almost $100,000. Salaries and wages make up for $2 million of this year’s $2.2 million budget while $197,000 cover supplies and expenses. Students’ art fees total to roughly $25,500; $17,000 covering supplies and $8,500 being put towards salaries and wages.

But allocation for equipment dropped significantly from last year to this year. Last year about $16,000 went towards equipment – the majority of it came from a grant – and this year $1,000 is allocated for that purpose.

Alexandra Iosub, a recent graduate who studied printmaking and lithography, says she is concerned with the management of the equipment she used while she attended Stony Brook. She says the presses students use to print lithographs are old and constantly in need of repair. “The lack of funding was most obvious in the litho studio,” she says, comparing it to the digital arts studio next door which is filled with brand new Macs and secured by an alarmed glass door.

Along with paying her $50-100 studio fee, Iosub had to purchase her own supplies as well: sponges, pencils, aprons and aluminum ball-grained plates. She says her professor has rationed materials such as cheese cloth because there are not enough funds to replace them.

Art students are required to spend significant amounts of time outside of classes to work on their projects. Mosher works as a web designer and takes up sporadic contract jobs, not working as much as she would like because she needs time to complete her projects. After adding in the money she spends on supplies, she says she has to borrow money from her husband to relieve herself of these financial burdens. Iosub also worked while taking summer courses and she worked in the fall on top of a course load of five studio classes. Sometimes, if students cannot afford to buy supplies for a class, it can defer their graduation.

“If you’re not working, how are you supposed to pay for supplies?” Mosher says. “It’s kind of like a huge Catch-22.”

John Lutterbie, the art department chairperson, declined a request for an interview to discuss these issues.

Nader Nouraee, a senior and teaching assistant for the Photography I class, says many students confront him about their inability to afford supplies. One student, he says, told him she was poor and could not find the money to buy the suggested $400 worth of materials. Nouraee says this affects students’ performances in class because they are unable to produce decent prints.

However, he agrees with Levine that this is something the art department always required of students. He also agrees with the problems suggested by Levine that could arise if Stony Brook supplied students with their own rations of materials.

But the studio art and biology double major says he believes there is not much that can be done. “I think it’s important to stay optimistic about it,” Nouraee says. “But as of now, I don’t really see it going anywhere.”

Following a defeat by the University of Vermont on February 12, the Seawolves came right back to best Northeastern in a decisive 76-69 win on the Huskies’ home turf.

Junior Tommy Brenton orchestrated the offense on Saturday, kicking the team’s energy into high gear in the second half. He was one of three players to end the game with double digits, scoring 13 points and adding seven rebounds, seven assists, two blocks and two steals to the action.

Sophomore guard Dave Coley matched a career-high of 21 points, previously set against Boston University in the early days of the season. Senior Dallis Joyner added a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds and remained a solid force inside the paint, making Northeastern look outside to their jump shooters.

The Seawolves, whose record from the free throw line was a satisfactory 13-19, relied on their inside game and speed to match the three-pointers of the Huskies, who went 10-17 from behind the arc.

Since their February 9 win against UMBC, the long shots have not been falling for Stony Brook. In their game against Vermont, the Seawolves went a startling 0-15 from the three-point line.

Their comeback against Northeastern was typical of what fans hope to see in the coming weeks leading up to the America East Conference and the bid for the NCAAs: the Seawolves will not fall asleep on defense with a lead, and they will not get frustrated when they’re down.

Under the leadership of Head Coach Steve Pikiell, the men keep to their plays and buckle down, not rushing or panicking as time begins to run out. With the added bonus of Tommy Brenton, who knows when to dish the ball out and flash into the paint and how to keep cool in big moments, the Seawolves are looking for a trip to the ‘Big Dance.’

Brenton, who was out for the entirety of last season due to injury, including the heart wrenching two-point loss to Boston University that would have led to the first NCAA bid in Stony Brook’s history, is one of the conference’s leading rebounders, averaging 8.85 rebounds a game. He could be the missing piece in the NCAA puzzle.

Stony Brook is at the top of the America East Conference, but their loss to UVM keep the dreams of the Huskies alive for the top seed.

The Conference Championships are set to begin on Saturday, March 3, at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

The Seawolves will face Hartford at noon on February 21, and the Maine Black Bears at noon on February 26 at home before beginning Conference play.

Ok, that’s a dream that I won’t actually pursue, but for the two hours or so that I sat in the Staller Center watching the former figure skater Kimberly Craig fly through the air swinging from a hoop and Stand Up 8 co-founder Zay Weaver twirl several yards up on a silk rope, I constantly thought, I want to do that.

Before the show even began, the performers stood on stage with no curtain hiding them, to warm up and talk to the audience. Weaver promised a free gift to the first person who could pull up a picture of a “seawolf” on their phone, so she could see what it was. Sam Brown, a clown, meandered through the rows talking and high-fiving.

The show was based heavily on interaction with the audience. Often performers envision a “fourth wall” separating them from the viewers; this troupe did exactly the opposite. Audience response was completely integral to the performance.

Humor mixed with deep feeling as the scenes and performers varied. Brown was chased off the stage by Brett Copes after slapping him in a very Three Stooges-style, which contrasted with another scene with Weaver appearing in a wedding dress and handcuffs to give an impassioned speech about why she is an aerialist before ripping the dress to shreds and demonstrating her aerial prowess.

Singer Sandy Swier seemed a bit incongruous from the rest of the cast, but she did have quite a voice. It was very amusing, and slightly annoying, when Christianne Sainz, a gymnast, took the microphone from her and launched into a Justin Bieber song.

Stage performances generally hide the backstage area to keep the mystery of the show alive. Stand Up 8 doesn’t believe in this concept. There were no curtains, and much of the wings were visible, including the “human sandbag” set up for the aerialists. A stagehand attached to the fly system climbed up and down a truss at the edge of the stage to lift or lower the performers. That unique aspect of the performance impressed me, even more than the awesome contortions and flying itself.

My one complaint about the show is the lack of flow. The acts seemed very disparate and largely unrelated. At times, there seemed to be a theme explaining why the performers do what they do, but several of the acts didn’t carry this through. It could be that the randomness reflected the chaos of a circus in a big top, but I didn’t feel like the disconnect was intentional.

As for my dream of flying through the air without a harness, I feel that’s the kind of thought Stand Up 8 is trying to inspire. The idea that one can be happy doing something out of the ordinary, something exhilarating, even if no one else understands.

Like the proverb from which the troupe gets its name says, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

The group has only had two meetings so far. Interested students have come together to knit and crochet. Some are working on their own projects, and others use the abundant donated yarn to make charitable items.

“I think it’s pretty cool to be able to make something practical, while at the same time being creative about it,” club member Jon Hunt said.

Hunt has attended both of the meetings and has started learning basic crochet techniques from co-founders Emma Chylinski and Tatiana Pawelec, who welcome both experienced knitters and novices to the group.

“It was very frustrating at first, but it has gotten easier,” Hunt said. “I’m hoping to actually make something soon.”

Ravelry.com is a knitting forum that Chylinski spends a lot of time on. She said she posted the idea for her club there and received an enthusiastic response. That response has resulted in Chylinski’s closet being stuffed full of donated yarn.

One local woman donated a particularly large amount of yarn, asking that the group use it to make hats for her church, which will then donate them to cancer patients.

Chylinski said they are using squares made while teaching new members, as well as random squares from other knitters and crocheters, to make baby blankets to donate to the hospital. Other than that, Chylinski says the group is “open to suggestions” for other places to donate.

Currently, the group is meeting in the basement of Sanger College in Tabler Quad with the blessing of Residence Hall Director Michael Blackman. “As long as we don’t have more than like 20 people or break anything,” Chylinksi said, the club should be allowed to stay.

SBU Memes, a Facebook fan page that was launched on Wednesday, has become an instant Stony Brook phenomenon. By the time SBU Memes had been on Facebook for a day, it had already amassed 1,000 likes. A week later, the number was just shy of 3,500. The memes are typically shared by scores of students and seen by hundreds of their friends.

Jess, the creator of SBU Memes, said she was inspired by Boston University’s meme page. She asked that we not disclose her last name because she is applying for jobs.

“I honestly wasn’t into memes before I made this page,” she said, adding how shocked she was that it became so popular. “I didn’t expect it to blow up that quickly at all.”

This certainly isn’t the first time that a collection of memes has become popular on the Internet. Image boards, curated and crowd-sourced alike, have long been favorite destinations for Internet users.

Tumblr, Reddit and 4chan are just some of the meme-filled sites that rank among the Internet’s 1,000 most visited websites, according to Alexa, a website that monitors website traffic. Sites exclusively dedicated to memes, like Knowyourmeme and Meme Generator, aren’t far behind.

It is, however, Stony Brook’s most popular discussion forum to date. Stony Brook Things, a Tumblr blog featuring similar content, never took off quite the same way. It’s picked up popularity in recent days, though many of the newer posts were originally featured on SBU Memes.

And unlike SBUChat, SBU Memes is embracing the mainstream. By using Facebook, the page has been able to grow organically. The meme format and host site also means that trouble is less likely. The posts are not anonymous and the purpose of the page is to post humorously captioned pictures. A Wikileaks-style dumping of student information on this page seems unlikely.

At its best, the page has put the likes and dislikes, along with the lore of Stony Brook into writing. Their dislikes include the administration’s policies, (“Raises tuition, builds hotel,” read one chronologically-challenged meme) and geese.

Roosevelt and Kelly Quads were both stereotyped: Kelly as a haven for potheads and Roosevelt as “a shadowy place” and a “hood.”

By far the most popular meme was one that poked fun at the Tabler steps while referencing a Jay-Z song. It had more than 1,100 likes and 100 shares on Thursday.

“I got 99 problems. 54 of them are the Tabler steps,” reads the meme. The text was placed over a photo of the steps, covered in snow.

Sophomore Emma Tobias became the star of a meme after sharing a photo of herself on the Where in the World is Wolfie fan page. In it, she’s holding a small stuffed Wolfie outside of a pagoda in Reading, Pennsylvania.

“1 Million USD and we’ll return the wolf,” read the meme that used her photo, suggesting that Tobias had kidnapped Wolfie and was holding him for ransom, possibly in China. Tobias wasn’t a fan of the joke.

“It took me a minute to remember that it was all just part of a joke and I could laugh it off,” she said.

Still, she enjoys the page and has shared a number of the memes posted on and by it.

“They’re really funny as a whole,” Tobias said of the memes, “and it gives us a way to just tell it like it is on campus.”

Other students have been less emphatic about the memes’ quality.

While sitting towards the back of the USG Senate meeting, Ken Myers, a member of the Student Activities Board, decided to show his two friends sitting next to him a few of the memes. At first they laughed quietly, as not to disrupt the senate. But a few memes in, the laughter stopped.

“This is so stupid,” Myers said, closing the window. He later explained his thoughts on the page.

“Some of them are wrong. People are just putting text on a picture,” he said. “But they’re getting better.” Myers pointed to some of the captioned pictures of Wolfie as a sign of the page’s improving quality.

“I actually reposted one of them,” he added.

Myers expressed concerns about memes that were insensitive towards Asian and Asian American students. High Expectations Asian Father showed up quite a few times, as did jokes specific to the behaviors of Asians on campus.

“Has to print one page. Asian in front of you is printing math textbook,” read one meme. “Seawolf? Why not A-wolf?” read another.

“They’re not really that offensive,” said Asian American E-Zine’s Vice President Brian Loo after looking at some of the memes targeting Asians. The publication’s staff was looking at the memes as he spoke. He said he had seen some of the memes before SBU Memes shared them and that most of them weren’t very funny.

The comments, however, were a different story. Adam Sue, the club’s president, pointed to one on a photo of a sign that read “YOUR IN SEAWOLVES COUNTRY.”

“Damn Asians!” wrote a student, complaining about the misused “your.”

“Even people who were born here make that mistake all the time,” said Sue, pointing out that some of the other jokes on the site stereotyped Asians as being good at academics, something he didn’t mind.

To the campus’s credit, a few commenters, both Asian and not, jumped on the comment for being bigoted. Others blamed the grammatical error on science majors.

“I don’t bother talking to those kinds of people,” said Wilson Jiang, a staff writer. The group compared the commenters to the “trolls” that inhabit sites like YouTube and traditional image boards.

The page has certainly not been without its critics. Jess was more than willing to acknowledge them. “The memes are definitely hit or miss as a few students have commented. I didn’t expect everyone to like all of them,” she said.

She mentioned one commenter in particular who argued with a meme joking that “everyone” on campus is from Long Island.

“So many people are unable to grasp the concept of exaggeration and satire,” Jess said.  Obviously not everyone here is from Long Island but 48 percent is still a lot! A little hyperbole never hurt anyone. Except that kid, apparently.”

Jess’s only fear was that she would portray Stony Brook in a negative light. She said a commenter asked if Stony Brook was a bad place to go to school and that she responded by saying she loved it here.

“I did it for laughs,” said Jess. “My sole intent was to make people laugh, to provide an interactive place where students and alum could joke about Stony Brook while really giving everyone a sense of community.”

Jess shared a quote from a friend that she thought put the intention of her site best.

“Wherever you go to school, you need to be able to laugh. Every school has its share of dumb administrative moves, professor and technology issues, and confused students. SBU is a great place, especially if you make it worth your while.”