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Junior gains over 11,000 followers on meme account
By Gabrielle Kesh, Managing Editor
Evie Klein waves to her followers as she livestreams to teach AP U.S. History.
Lara Delvecchio
A playful dare by a friend turned junior Evie Klein into the mastermind behind @apush_it_real_good, a goofy but educational history-flavored Instagram account. As of May 22, Evie has over 11,300 followers who learn about history through her posts that follow up simple memes with detailed, informational captions that genuinely explain various historical events and people throughout history.
"Initially, I started the account as a joke and planned on doing it for a few weeks before shutting it down," Evie said. "After a while, I realized people were learning from my page and I was making a difference in their lives."
Since Evie was a child, she said, she developed a deep passion for history and learning. She would constantly read biographies about various presidents and imagine herself in historical scenarios. She said her passion for understanding history has driven her to work hard throughout her academic career and has inspired her to help others.
Evie shared her first post, a meme about political machine ruler, Boss Tweed, on Oct. 6, 2018 . She said she tried to keep her identity hidden since it was a smaller account with minimal followers and felt embarrassed by her lack of popularity. After hitting around 8,000 followers in April, Evie said she felt proud of what she accomplished and revealed herself via a live video.
"I'm very shocked that it has as many followers as it does," junior Samuel Burk said. "I know about meme accounts but I never would've expected someone who runs one is in my school."
"I've known about it since she created it," junior Hannah Rhodes said. "I didn't think she would do poorly, but I was super impressed she got followers from around the school and country."
Evie's memes are all original content that she creates by herself. Using platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and Memeatic, she spends time finding a template and piecing images and text boxes together. In order to write her captions, she averages an hour completing extensive research from history textbooks and online resources. Her most popular post is a thread of memes with over 9,000 likes that joke about policies enacted by president Theodore Roosevelt. Her favorite meme is an image of a larger cat stepping on a smaller one: a representation of Roosevelt crushing monopolies during the Progressive Era.
"I make the memes a priority in my life by treating them like homework," Klein said.
Taking her work to the next level, Evie has been working with two companies named Thinkfiveable and Marco Learning. On April 22, after the company direct messaged her on Instagram, she did her first livestream with Thinkfiveable about how to write an APUSH essay. Two weeks later, she did live streams with Marco Learning in preparation for the APUSH and AP Lang exams in which she shared her studying tips. She said she will be receiving a paycheck soon, yet she does not care about how much she gets paid.
Evie Klein teaches a lecture about AP U.S. history using an AMSCO textbook.
"Everyone is always on their phones, so putting information about the subject on social media allows people to study while scrolling," Evie said. "Boxing learning to just a classroom does not allow people to reach their full potential."
Despite her teaching capability, Evie said she would like to study political science with a focus on domestic policy in college. She said she would like to run for public office to fight for what she believes in.
For now, Evie plans to continue the meme account through the rest of her high school experience. She said she is still fathomed by the success the account has generated and wants to continue to teach. She advises struggling APUSH students to teach themselves history as if it were a story as opposed to random dates and names.
"I know that what I'm doing isn't 'too cool' to high school kids, but I find it cool in its own way," Evie said. "History is an extremely important class to understand because it teaches lessons about past mistakes so that society can learn for a better future."
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