A‑grade students: r/GCSE’s top meme makers
An inside look at the sub-reddit in which 16-year-olds are trolling exam boards.
Life
Words: Amy Francombe
All across the UK Year 11s are buckling down for their GCSEs. Whether you sat GCSEs or O levels, were marked using letters, rather than numbers, or completed five instead of 12 – we all have memories of this tense period packed full of revision. Students have been resorting to all manner of techniques to ease the stress, from flashcards, tutors, and study buddies, to YouTube videos – but there’s one particular place that jittery teens have been flocking to: r/GCSE.
“The best place on the internet for revision, on the worst website on the internet for revision,” states the bold red banner at the top of the sub-reddit. Sure, it was created for “tips, advice and resources”, but, as is the case with most digital platforms, it’s really being used to share and up-vote all manner of DIY exam-related memes.
What better way to poke fun at invigilators, despair/boast about your lack of revision, or to declare exam board AQA cancelled on account of their unnecessarily difficult questions. r/GCSE, it’s all A*’s from us.
Two r/GCSE users (with a ton of up-votes under their belt) took time out of their revision schedule to give us the inside scoop.
R/HumdrumAnt
What meme best describes your mood right now?
Probably the meme with 4 panels of the confused woman with all the equations.
Describe AQA in one word.
Troglodytes.
You’re in the room with the person who wrote the physics paper, what do you say?
Why did you make all those complex mathsy questions that needed 275 equations??
Memes or all As?
All A’s
Why do you use r/GCSE?
I use it because it helps with my stress to know others feel the same and to see memes after exams.
Do all your friends go on it, too?
YES very much. More than anything else.
R/CrustyShaun
What meme best describes your mood right now?
The Minecraft comeback meme because I’m playing too much and not revising.
Describe AQA in one word.
Decent.
You’re in the room with the person who wrote the physics paper, what do you say?
I would ask the physics paper guy where all the practical went.
Memes or all As?
All A’s
Why do you use r/GCSE?
I use r/GCSE to laugh after a stressful exam and compete with friends to see who can get the most up votes.
How did you find r/GCSE?
I use r/asoue and r/okbuddyretard I found it by it being recommended to me on reddit.
Do you make memes before the exam?
I only make memes after and it’s fine because I’ve done all my revision.
