Questions, candy and conversations: Students create fun on-campus club

Faced with the choice to continue studying or go home, Will Poteet and Emerson Meadows instead decided to ask people in the Pit questions in exchange for a piece of candy. After realizing their idea was a hit, they formed the Question Club.

Meadows said the opportunity to start asking questions came when he and Poteet saw an unoccupied table in the Pit.  

“We sat down on it and kind of had the idea that it'd be fun to ask people silly, goofy questions,” he said. 

Poteet, a UNC junior and club co-founder, said the club is all about connecting with students.  

“It's just about having fun, honestly, going out, meeting people and making a bunch of new connections,” he said. 

Since its founding earlier this month, the club has gained around 200 members and has handed out over 700 pieces of candy.

Poteet said a large number of people who are asked questions end up wanting to join the club themselves — despite it being informal and not directly affiliated with the University.

Makayla Teen, a UNC first-year and member of the Question Club, said the questions asked are amusing and light-hearted.  

Teen said recent questions include "If you had to change your first and last name, what would you change it to?" and "If you had to choose anyone to be president for the rest of their life, who would it be?"

Maggie Von Canon, a UNC first-year and club member, said the club is fascinating.

“I think that the club is interesting because it sparks curiosity about things that are seemingly insignificant or significant,” Von Canon said.

Teen said she recently helped develop the club’s Instagram page and is thinking of more ways to promote it on social media.

“We talked about an answer of the week or answer of the day, and putting on our story what the question was or what we thought the best answer was for that day,” she said.

Poteet said people are often hesitant to speak with him, despite the light-hearted questions and large amount of club members.

“It’s definitely a struggle to get people to open up and get out of a defensive mode and get into a playful back-and-forth type thing, which is what we love for Question Club,” he said. 

Since the club began setting up in the Pit every Tuesday and Thursday, Meadows said relationships have started to form with people who return each week. 

“Once somebody comes back two or three times, they're your friend,” he said. “You've had a couple of different conversations with them and because they're coming back to you, they obviously see some appeal in it.”  

Teen said she has also seen friendships form from people coming to the club’s table. 

“People who did not know each other before coming to the Pit and ended up becoming friends after having seen each other in the Question Club, which I think is really cool,” she said. 

Poteet said starting the club has allowed him to interact with more students than ever before. He said he has met more people in the past three weeks than in his previous two years at the University.

Meadows said his favorite part of the club is the unexpected connections created. 

“The relationships you make out of the blue, out of the ordinary, is really, really special,” he said. 

@dailytarheel

university@dailytarheel.com