Danish students turn math exam frustrations into viral meme trend

Danish ninth-grade students have transformed their shared frustration with this year’s math exams into a widespread meme phenomenon, reports DR. The trend, centered on recurring exam characters like Anton, Selma, and Mads, has gone viral on TikTok and Instagram, creating a humorous outlet for exam stress.

The exams—known for problems involving filling pools, mixing juice, or setting up tents—have long been a staple of Denmark’s final primary school assessments. This year, 65,000 students faced questions like calculating how long Anton and Selma would take to fill a 23,000-liter pool using a hose and a bucket, or determining the angle of Mads’ tent fabric.

For students like Sally Runge, a ninth-grader at Herstedlund School, the memes have helped ease exam anxiety. “It’s a weirdly fun feeling that others understand how absurd these problems are,” she told DR. “We’ve all been nervous, but it’s also funny that we’ve all struggled with the same things.”

Katrine K. Pedersen, a digital culture researcher at the University of Copenhagen, describes the trend as a form of “teenage bedroom humor”—a way for students to bond over shared stress. “Memes like these deflate the pressure,” she explained in a DR P1 interview. “It’s their way of laughing at something that’s otherwise very serious.”

The memes, while widely shared, remain an inside joke among the students. “Only ninth-graders really get it,” Pedersen noted. Runge agreed, adding that the trend highlights a positive side of social media: “You realize you weren’t the only one who found it hard.”

As for the most ridiculed problem? “Definitely Mads’ tent,” Runge said. “Why does he even need to know the angle of his tarp?”