Zachary Grant BessFollow

Date Collected

Winter 12-1-2017

Place item was collected

Online

Informant

Zachary Grant Bess

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

My name is Zachary Grant Bess, I’m a student with a Dual Major in English Teaching and History Teaching. I’m in the military, as well as a student, and currently serve in the USUSA as the Senator for CHaSS here at USU. I was raised in Southern Utah. I am a frequent user of social media and have had twitter for 7 years or more, besides Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram etc. (as well as the defunct, Myspace, Bebo, Hi5, Google+, etc.) I follow internet culture as a participant quite often. I’m also in the circles of which USU Athletics are talked about online.

Context

I’ve seen this hashtag #BuckFYU used at least since my freshman year, 2011-2012, but with some looking around the earliest usage is 2009 that I was able to find. It is used both by Utah State Aggie Fans, as well as University of Utah Utes Fans. This is because of a shared mutual distain both student groups feel towards their Private religious rival. That rivalry, is founded much upon a perceived uppity and self-righteousness of BYU, whether actual or not. The use of the hashtag is short and simple and used for trash talk, particularly right before the user’s institution is going to face off against BYU (i.e. before Utah State v. BYU Men’s Basketball etc.) Buck FYU, the separated phrase, is a play on the more vulgar real term “Fuck BYU.” They letter-swap is not unique to these rivalries, and is used against Michigan [Muck Fichigan] and also against Washington Huskies [Huck the Fuskies] and likely others. It was used as recently as the December 2nd 2017 basketball game online, and is regularly recirculated by rival teams. More recently it is sometimes used by other teams, before BYU games, even though the rivalries are much smaller. Online, it is sometimes used a stand-alone tweet,” #buckfyu” or added to the end of a long post about the game, the rivalry, or anything pertaining to the event. It sometimes exists outside of the hashtag, simply “Buck FYU” used in a sentence or context.

Text

[See photo's]

[My Personal Usage of it recently]

[A Ute Fan’s Instagram Post, used in conjunction with making fun of Max Hall, a Former BYU Quarterback who went into Rehab for Cocaine Use, something that would have got him kicked out of BYU]

[General usage on Twitter]

[Former USU Basketball User, at the time a Professional BB player, wishing his former teammates good luck against BYU]

Texture

The general usage of the hashtag is done both humorously, and with some jest, much like other athletic-rival sentiments. It takes on a special usage here in Utah because “Fuck BYU” is vulgar, and many of the fans, on both sides of the rivalries, are religious and avoid the word “Fuck.” Thus, “Buck FYU” is a cleaner way of expressing the exact same sentiment. In most ways this phrase is used like any other athletic rivalry material, however, it is particularly effective against BYU as they find it offensive (compared to U of Washington for example.)

Course

English 2210

Instructor

Lynne S. McNeil

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G9: Hashtags

EAD Number

6.4

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