For the past two months, an anonymously run Instagram account has posted memes poking fun at the conventions of Cordova life — from ordering takeout from The Powder House when you have perfectly good leftovers in the fridge, to the ongoing debate over police staffing. The Cordova Times sat down to chat with the “Curdova Memes” team to find out how Prince William Sound’s dankest memes are crafted.
Does Curdova Memes have a political perspective? Or are memes selected purely on the value of their lolworthiness?
Memes are chosen solely for relatability and lolness. Sometimes local politics are funny and the memes have a flavor of that, but we’re not interested in creating political cartoons. We want to keep it to the fun “poking at” level, similar to joking with your friends.
What sort of response have you gotten from the public?
We’ve had a hugely positive response, and lots of folks submit their own ideas either as complete pieces or as concepts that we then put together for them. It feels great to make people smile and also to offer a platform for creativity.
What online content creators have influenced your approach?
Other similar niche accounts that are for a small community or very specific audience. Meme pages for schools or other Alaska meme accounts. The general foundation is that our town and lifestyle is unique, so the memes play off that common experience. We want the reaction to be like, “Haha so true!” or, “Oh gosh, I can relate.”
In your judgment, what meme best characterized 2020?
Phew, that’s a hard one… I’m gonna go with Running Away Balloon. Kinda felt the energy of the whole year, looking forward to anything positive and embracing small victories but still overshadowed by an intense and ever-present weight.
And what’s the most annoying, or played-out, meme going around right now?
Anything Baby Yoda.
You’ve posted a few memes with 4chan-associated elements, like Wojak and Trad Girl, that are sometimes used in far edgier material than what’s seen on Curdova Memes. Are there any memes you’re per se opposed to posting? For instance, would you post a Pepe the Frog meme if it were funny enough?
I think we’d consider the Pepe and 4chan-style memes for sure. It just isn’t what people submit, and generally not what we happened to be inspired by. We scroll the explore page of Instagram for templates rather than other platforms.
What else does the public need to know about Curdova Memes?
We’re pretty amazed that people are so excited about the page, and happy to take submissions, but also hope everyone knows we aren’t constantly on here. Several people run the page, so sometimes messages get marked read or lost in the mix and we can’t always be 100% on top of all submissions (but we very much appreciate them!)
