What is College Liberal?

College Liberal is an advice animal image macro of a young woman in dreadlocks and a knit beanie, captioned to portray naive or hypocritical left-wing campus activism, part of the wider "Advice Animals" web trend[1].

Where did College Liberal come from?

The character launched as an advice animal on Quickmeme and Reddit in late December 2011 and had jumped to the conservative forum Free Republic by December 25th, 2011[1].

What does College Liberal mean?

The captions mock hypocritical or self-contradictory campus progressives, echoing the earlier Urban Dictionary sense of "college liberal" as a place full of "stuck up douchebags who like to think they're accepting"[2].

How do you use College Liberal?

Users pair a two-line caption over the base image: the top states a progressive belief, the bottom names a contradictory behavior, like "Afraid of hormones in milk / takes acid from strangers"[1].

Is College Liberal still popular?

College Liberal took off on Reddit and Quickmeme in December 2011 and drew wide reposting soon after, with Free Republic readers at the time calling the captions strikingly "accurate" and saying they nailed "a look of Lefty smug"[1].

College Liberal

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College Liberal is an advice animal image macro of a young woman with dreadlocks and a knit beanie, captioned to portray naive and hypocritical left-wing campus activism. The format launched on Quickmeme and Reddit's r/AdviceAnimals on December 23rd, 2011, hitting the front page with over 7,000 upvotes and quickly spreading to Free Republic, Canvas, and other early-2010s meme hubs.

advice animals hypocrisy memes political satire memes campus memes culture war memes

Overview

College Liberal is an advice animal image macro featuring a portrait of a young white woman in a knit beanie and dreadlocks3. Captions follow a fixed hypocrisy structure where the setup states a progressive belief and the punchline names a contradictory action tied to hippie or campus activist stereotypes.

"College Liberal" had already circulated on Urban Dictionary as slang for a college full of "stuck up douchebags who like to think they're accepting," capturing the same target the meme would later run with2. Free Republic readers called the captions strikingly "accurate," picking out lines like "Voldemort won't find me... if I get a sex change"1.

How It Spread

The debut Reddit post hit r/AdviceAnimals on December 23rd, 2011 with the caption "'We need to love and respect all cultures and religions / except Christianity'" and pulled over 7,000 upvotes in a week3. Copies spread the same day to the skepticism blog Playing The Devil's Advocate, Bodybuilding.com forums, and Gaia Online, and on December 24th a photoshop thread opened on the image-remixing site Canvas.

On December 25th, 2011, user Moose Burger posted a compilation to the conservative forum Free Republic, where members called the captions strikingly "accurate"1. Commenters quoted "Hasn't Washed Hair In Three Years (Wonders Why She Has No Dates)" as a favorite and compared her look to a "girl most likely to name herself after a condiment and 'do' a nerd named Justin"1.

How to Use This Meme

Users pair a two-line caption over the cropped headshot: the top line states a progressive belief or self-image, and the bottom line names a behavior that contradicts it.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (3)