Uber Frosh / College Freshman

About

College Freshman (a.k.a Uber Frosh) is an image macro series featuring a college student with headphones and a mobile phone. Portrayed as a hybrid of Scumbag Steve and Socially Awkward Penguin, the captions usually highlight the all-too-familiar cliches found in campus social scenes and student life during college years.

Origin

Though its origin unclear, the photograph of the student, presumably enrolled at University of New Hampshire, has been used as a generic stock image for various blog posts and advertisements, with articles like “Why Every College Freshman Should Start a Roth IRA” and “Focusing on Others Can Decrease Freshman Year Anxiety” posted via Jacobs Financial Group^[1] and Mental Health News^[9] in January and June 2010 respectively.

The earliest known instance of College Freshman image macro was uploaded on July 26th via Quickmeme^[2] with a caption poking fun at typical beer sign decorations seen in dorm rooms:

Spread

The series has since spread across Tumblr^[3], as well as humor blogs and forums like Memebase^[4], FunnyJunk^[5], Bodybuilding forum^[6], IGN^[7], and BuzzFeed^[10] among others.

Über Frosh

While the generic label “College Freshman” appears to be the prevalent name associated with the macro series, it has been also dubbed “Uber Frosh,” a colloquial adjective meaning “freshman-like” according to the Urban Dictionary^[8] definition submitted in September 2008:

Über Frosh:
To be similar in manner to a freshman, regardless of age; freshman-like.

Spin-Off: Senior Freshman

Shortly after the launch of the image macro series on Quickmeme, a spin-off series known as Senior College Freshman also emerged on the site, centered around a picture of a senior citizen student looking studious in a classroom setting: