The need for Instagram accounts about hyper-specific topics is at an all-time high, and Fordham University is no stranger to this. It has become a trend in the last couple of years for college students to create accounts dedicated to highlighting different experiences and aspects of their campus. This trend has found its way to Fordham, giving us accounts dedicated to providing entertainment and a place for students to interact with each other. These harmless accounts have become an essential part of Fordham’s social media culture and are completely student-driven.
If there was a Fordham Instagram accounts competition, the reigning national champion would be the infamous meme page @fordumbuniveristy. This account has over 6,500 followers and consists of memes pertaining to the university. The popularity of the account has spread far beyond just the students of Fordham. One of my professors last semester brought up during class how he loves the account. He said he is a big fan of their posts, and it was interesting to learn that even professors are aware of the online identity affiliated with Fordham culture.
I do need to pay tribute to my favorite account of all time, which was Fordham Flirts, an account dedicated to students submitting anonymous messages of admiration for other students, referred to as “flirts.” They would post hundreds of flirts every week that were filtered through the account owner, who would post them with background photos of Fordham’s campuses.
The account was popular for the two years it was active, beginning in September 2021 and ending in November 2023 after the account rebranded to @fordham_saints, which has since been deleted. It was entertaining to look through the submissions and see my friends and acquaintances receive flirts, as some of them were sweet while others were simply bizarre. I was heartbroken the day the account changed, and I miss scrolling through flirts every day!
Nobody is a stranger to the cats that meander around campus, and the account @fordhamcatss was created recently to showcase the cutest members of the Fordham community. “I wanted to create a Fordham cats account because I saw that there used to be an old one that was no longer running! I know how much everyone loves the cats on campus so I saw a definite need for an account dedicated to them! And it’s also so much fun to run the account as a big cat lover myself,” said the account owner. Many accounts have gone dormant as students graduate, such as @fordhamwhiskers and @fordhamcats, and the continuous revival of this concept shows the significance of the cats to the community.
The owner posts their own content of the cats, and followers send in their own photos of them to be featured. I am a big fan of the cats on campus and they deserve a spotlight on social media. Although they already get plenty of attention during the school day, their online presence keeps the cats with students even when they are not on campus.
Emilio Marino, FCRH ’25, started his own Fordham instagram account his first year with the username @knobs_knockers_and_handles. Marino decided to make the account dedicated to reviewing different doors and handles on campus. “I kept seeing all these Fordham-themed accounts following me, and they would be for the most random things… I found them funny and had the idea to make one myself. I thought it would be fun to post pictures of doors and see how long it could go until I got bored. The idea of doing it anonymously was also part of it; I remember overhearing people talk about my account several times which was kinda cool,” said Marino.
His account consists of captions narrated by Guy Fieri giving his brutal and honest reviews, including different buildings like Keating Hall and Hughes Hall. “When planning my account, I wanted it to be as dumb a concept as possible… I thought to myself that an Instagram account playing the character of Guy Fieri as he reviews Fordham door installations was as insane and nonsensical as it could get.”
Although I only touched on a few accounts that have been dedicated to Fordham life, these are just a select few of the many that have been made. Some other topics that have been highlighted on social media are the plethora of discarded flossers found around campus and reviews of our notorious dining hall food. These accounts come up alongside the official social media pages for the university when you enter “Fordham” in the search bar, which allows these subcultures to expand further than the Fordham community, giving insight into the Fordham subculture for outsiders.
