Journal & Topics Media Group

Teacher’s Use Of Meme Stickers Goes Viral


Ainee Fatima

East Leyden High School teacher Ainee Fatima posted a video on social media on Oct. 17 that garnered worldwide attention.

In the video, Fatima places a sticker of the confused Nick Young meme next to a student’s answer on an exam. She did not expect her post to be so popular.

“I initially sent it on Snapchat to a couple friends,” Fatima said. “I thought about posting it on Twitter, and quite literally overnight it had gone viral. I had woken up and it had a million views.”

She said she was shocked by some of the answers on her students’ exams and that the memes were a great representation of the faces she was making while she graded her students’ work.

“I thought, ‘You know, we use memes and gifs so much in our texting and social media to react to things,’ so why not react to test answers with memes?” Fatima said.

Fatima made two sets of stickers: one for positive feedback and one for constructive feedback.

“I personally love the Nick Young face. It embodied my reaction to what people were writing,” Fatima said. “I went for chef Gordon Ramsey for positive because he’s notoriously known to not be positive, so it would be funny and ironic in that way.”

Fatima said she has a student who is an English language learner who is helped by meme usage in the classroom. She said that memes are a good visual tool for some students who might not understand written feedback.

“Why write a few words she wouldn’t understand?” she said.

Fatima, who started her professional teaching career at the beginning of the school year, teaches English and media studies at East Leyden. Students often show her the latest meme trends, and Fatima said it falls in line with what is taught in media studies — how media content has an impact on society.

“We talk about why some things go viral,” Fatima said. “We talk about how there are more stories that deserve more attention. I turned this into a teaching moment.”

Fatima said that since she’s gone viral, her follower count on social media sites like Twitter and Instagram has blown up. She said that reporters contact her from around the world and that Ubereats offered to host a pizza party for her students on Halloween. Gordon Ramsay even tweeted at her.

“A part of me wishes it would die down because it’s getting in the way of my teaching and time with students,” Fatima said.

According to Fatima, she isn’t the only staff member at East Leyden who embraces social media and memes. When she was hired, she recalled talking about the school’s Twitter account and a counselor’s wall covered with positive memes.

“It’s definitely in the culture here,” Fatima said.

Support local news by subscribing to the Journal & Topics in print or online.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.