Quaker Problems

memesThe Quaker Problems meme started as a variant on similar Internet constructions that combine images and captions (such as “First World Problems”) when a few of my Quaker friends at Earlham College in Indiana were talking about problems specific to Quakers and the Quaker experience. These weren’t serious problems; I think the first one was a response to frequently being asked, “Quakers? Oh, like the oatmeal?” I found a fitting image of George Fox and uploaded it to a meme-generator website. That night we made about 50 of them. It didn’t take very long for the idea to spread; soon we had received about 300 different captions! Friends from England and Australia have seen and shared it, and when I took a Quakerism class at Earlham, our professor shared it with the class! We have been interviewed by Jon Watts for QuakerSpeak (watch the video at below or at fdsj.nl/quaker-meme), and now the meme is in Friends Journal! I never imagined it would spread so far or become so well known. It makes me really excited to see Quakers from all over the world interacting with and sharing something this way. You can check out all of the Quaker Problems and submit your own at quakerprobs.tumblr.com.

 

2 thoughts on “Quaker Problems

  1. This is a wonderful phenomenon that definitely spreads awareness about the true (and quirky) facts about Quakers.

  2. I am a 70 Quaker GFS class of 1968. l have a treasure trove of Satterthwaite (starting at 1788 ) documents left to me by my parents. Email me and l will gladly send photos.

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