Cal Berkeley’s Calgorithm — social media and self-awareness in ‘the people’s program’

BERKELEY, Calif. — Speckled throughout the mass of overjoyed fans scrunched together at the epicenter of the Cal Berkeley campus Saturday morning were the ambassadors who played specific parts in making this once inconceivable scene materialize.

They raised their phones high, capturing a 360-degree view of the madness of ESPN’s “College GameDay,” and hit record. They embraced the emotion of the moment as the sun began to peek over the Berkeley hills.

Without them, Nick Saban isn’t tearing off his crimson tie at the behest of the fans who couldn’t bear seeing even a tinge of something close to Stanford Cardinal red in front of the sea of exultant California blue and gold. Without them, program legend Marshawn Lynch isn’t flown in to be the celebrity guest picker, taking his rightful place in a golf cart and later placing Kirk Herbstreit in a very friendly headlock.

And without them, the seats inside California Memorial Stadium aren’t packed more than 12 hours later to digest an agonizing last-minute 39-38 loss to No. 8 Miami.

Behold, the ballooning cultural clout of the Calgorithm, a guerilla-like social media movement that leans into sarcasm, stereotypes and self-awareness through photoshopped and AI-generated memes that embrace the absurdity of perception.

On Saturday, as GameDay’s Pat McAfee constantly roused the crowd, it was clear the Calgorithm had achieved its objective: to prove that Cal, associated with one of the most liberal communities in America, does, in fact, have a beloved fan base happily obsessed with Golden Bears football.

Punch in the hashtag online, and you’ll be awash in memes of grizzly bears wearing masks and stepping off an airplane called “Stop Climate Change Airlines” in Florida prior to Cal’s game earlier this season at Florida State. Or grizzly bears welcoming Miami Hurricanes on the tarmac with a “Critical Race Theory” book in hand.

“There’s a certain joy and a certain absurdity,” said Nam Le, who graduated from Cal in 2012. “It’s a fun story from a fan base that is traditionally ignored.”

At this point there are too many memes to count — and new attempts at their own brand of self-deprecation nearly every minute.

From within, they’ve cultivated a very obscure sports moment that has resonated not only within the online reaches of the Cal fan base, but among college football followers of other teams nationwide. A routine response from a random follower after diving deep into the Calgorithm is that “Cal is now my second favorite team,” members of the Calgorithm say.

When it pertains to actual membership, some are known publicly, some aren’t. Some are transparent about their real lives on social media, some aren’t.

Known commodities include a teacher, data analyst, political coordinator and someone who hawks hot dogs at minor-league baseball games. The others exist in the realm of anonymity and are referred to as “the burners.” They are known by random social media handles for their participation in the online discourse that has brought a disarming nature to platforms often inundated with volatility.

They’ve made themselves seen online but also within the walls of the Cal football facility. Some members of Cal’s football support staff have a group text thread carved out specifically for new memes to share.

“The burners are hilarious, man,” said Marshall Cherrington, Cal’s director of player personnel. “We all love them inside this building.”

Linebacker Cade Uluave specifically thanked “the burners” during a news conference appearance last week for helping bring more attention to the program and game against the Hurricanes. Special teams coordinator Vic So’oto shared on X that defensive lineman Xavier Carlton and linebacker Ryan McCullough were “keeping the pocket hot like Cal burners” followed by some flame emojis.

The reach the Calgorithm has achieved over the course of the season is apropos for the school and its locale. At a university in a city long known for its involvement in social movements dating back to the 1960s, this movement just played out on social media.

And the people, the fans, took matters into their own hands. GameDay producer Matthew Garrett said prior to making the call to Cal last week to gauge interest in hosting, he was flooded with questions by fans of what they could do to get the show to Berkeley for the first time. Prior to Saturday, Cal was one of six Power 4 schools to have never hosted.

When it got its chance, of course it was in typical cognizant Calgorithm fun. Signs held high compared Cal’s list of Nobel laureates produced at Berkeley compared with Miami. (The score is currently 61-4.) One read: “I thought this was a protest!”

The Calgorithm really seemed to take off after Cal upset Auburn 21-14 on Sept. 7 at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The meme by Don Grizzel, Ph.D (@golDonBear on X) featured cutouts of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, whose parents met in Berkeley in the early 1960s, Oski, Cal’s bear mascot, quarterback Fernando Mendoza, a rainbow, and an obtusely stretched out photo of President Joe Biden and the caption read: “You Just Lost to the Woke Agenda.” The post has received 5 million impressions.

The scope of the Calgorithm is immeasurable, members say, due to always churning conference realignment in college football. As the previously constituted Pac-12 imploded, Cal, alongside its rival Stanford, was forced to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, a league on the opposite coast but a home in a power conference. With that, came an opportunity for Cal fans to introduce themselves to a portion of the country that may have only known of Berkeley through various long-perpetuated stereotypes.

“They already believe these stereotypes about us,” said burner Callie, also known as @WokeMobFootball. “Why don’t we just turn it up to 12 and just absolutely make fun of it for how absurd they sound when it’s thrown back at them?”

Mike Davie says Cal fans have come armed for any sort of perception lobbed their way by fans online. But they say they always try to do it with a smile knowing that college football is what they all love and that it doesn’t need to be another well poisoned online.

“Yeah, we tell them the ‘DEI’ defense is here killing it,” Davie said. “And when people say, ‘Don’t make fun of Cal fans. They police pronouns.’ And we were like, ‘Here comes the pronoun punt team!’ And it makes them laugh.”

The Calgorithm is also perpetually one step ahead. They’ve also helped raise funds for Cal’s NIL collective, Cal Legends. People donating are leaving comments thanking the Calgorithm for activating attention.

“That’s the kind of person Cal produces into the real world, people who want to help do things in smart, simple and efficient ways,” Cherrington said. “And we want to always have our doors open to them. This is the people’s program.”

Four hours before kickoff against Miami, a small parking lot on the southeast side of campus hosted a Calgorithm tailgate. Exhausted already from a day that began before sun-up, they shared highlights and beers. They were still amped that Lynch drove the golf cart. Together, they watched Vanderbilt upset No. 1 Alabama.

They introduced themselves to one another as their online handles. Some burners geeked out over meeting others. One burner thanked Callie for remixing Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go!” hit song for Cal running back Jaydn Ott. “Ott to Go” was played at GameDay, which Callie could not get over, and probably never will.

Fellow Cal fans crowded around an exhausted Avinash Kunnath, a Cal grad and one of the godfathers of popular fan blog site, Write for California. Kunnath wore a Calgorithm meme T-shirt, jean jacket and a fuzzy bear hat. Saturday doesn’t happen without him, and basically everyone else in that tailgate lot, they said.

The group passed around shots of Malört, a tradition at the burner tailgate that dates back to the 2021 season. It was an ode to a past too often filled with disappointment, one which made a vengeful reappearance Saturday night. But it was also a salute to a future so swiftly reshaped by the community of devotees who took matters into their own hands and made the joke at their own expense before anyone else could.

“I like to tell people that we almost died as a program,” Le said. “We can’t really afford to be realistic about it anymore. This program deserves to and can only survive with a love and an ambition and a spirit that’s larger.”

(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Bob Kupbens / Icon Sportswire)