<p>There was tension in the air last night as media lecturer Jean Paul LeVol took a Cersei-esque walk of shame to the Dean’s office, after he was accused of plagiarism by failing to reference memes used in his PowerPoint slides. The University was notified of the lecturer’s theft after the Learning Management System (LMS) reported […]</p>
There was tension in the air last night as media lecturer Jean Paul LeVol took a Cersei-esque walk of shame to the Dean’s office, after he was accused of plagiarism by failing to reference memes used in his PowerPoint slides.
The University was notified of the lecturer’s theft after the Learning Management System (LMS) reported an outstanding similarity report of “98%” when analysing the lecturer’s recent PowerPoint presentation on “Memes in the media”.
LeVol, who has long warned against plagiarism to his students, said he really didn’t realise that he wasn’t practicing what he was preaching.
“I’m frankly embarrassed that this has happened to me, of all people” he said in a statement to Farrago. “I thought the memes and GIFs I found on the internet would have positive repercussions for my students’ interests, not negative ones for my credibility.”
However, LeVol’s tone drastically changed in a slightly malicious 3am Facebook post – which was probably triggered by the mass of mocking hate mail he has received since from students enrolled in his course.
“God damnit, I won’t even apologise! Youth are such a tough crowd these days – they don’t care about learning! They don’t get off on learning about ‘produsers’ like I do! So, I just thought, even if I can’t hook them with the content, I can definitely hook them with the memes. If that means I have to call myself a thief, so be it! At least now I’m ‘down’ with the kids mwahahahaha.”
Mr. LeVol has since been detained for threatening to cross well-established generational boundaries.
The University is currently investigating the usage of memes amongst university staff, after receiving numerous tip-offs from anonymous sources.
“We’re concerned that this is not an isolated incident” said a spokesperson. “We have reason to suspect that many academics are conducting similar practices, embedding often out-of-date pop culture references within lecture slides, without following appropriate ethical rules.”