Senior Sam Anderson shows off his Instagram account at Harding Park Nov. 13, 2019. Anderson gained thousands offollowers for his meme page created in 2017. I photo by Stanley Morales McLarty Party Senior Sam Anderson created Harding's original meme account, McLarty Party. In February 2 0 17, senior civil engineering major Sam Anderson created the "McLarty Party" meme account on Instagram. It was initially a comedic outlet shared privately among friends that grew into a campus-wide phenomenon. Anderson was in the second semester of his freshman year when he and some friends conceptualized the idea. "We just kind of saw that there was something missing, aka no meme accounts for Harding, and so I was like, 'I guess I'll start it, then,'" Anderson said. "No real reason why I did it; I was just bored one day." Anderson's boredom developed into something that was a source of entertainment in the lives of students for the following three years. After two years of online activity, the account had over 4,000 followers. Senior Camden Marshall, a friend of Anderson's, was present when the account was created and said no one predicted it would gain such momentum. "It was a secret for a while that he was running it," Marshall said. "Then we saw how popular it was becoming and just could not believe it." Marshall said there were a lot of great meme accounts created shortly after their account's inception but believed none ofthem would surpass "McLarty Party." Zach Neal, dean of students, said none of the deans had any problems with Anderson's account. "All of us [deans] had the same immediate reaction," Neal said. "We just see it as all in good fun." Neal said President Bruce McLarty did a great job letting students poke fun and interact with him, so if McLarty was fine with the account, so were the deans. Anderson said he actively tried to create content that represented Harding appropriately without pushing the limits. "I didn't really give it much thought early on because there weren't many followers, but now it's like half of the students here," Anderson said. "So, I try to remember that [I am] representing the students and their opinions to the administration and all the parents and basically anyone else." Anderson said he loved running the account for students' entertainment but was unsure if he would hand ownership of the account to another student after he graduated. "On one hand, yeah, it'd be cool if it kept going on for future generations," Anderson said. "On the other hand, I want to keep the quality top notch, so if I handed it off to someone else, I would want to make sure they are pretty great and they're up to the test." story by Emma Vaughn people 135
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