I’d
say by now most of us have seen this image and its many variations and parodies
floating around.
Upon
chit chat on a not so sunny Saturday brunch yesterday, I came to learn that one
of my fellow brunchers thought it’s a new brand from a T-shirt company. The
other corrected that it was one of the many memes originating and popularised
by Facebook. OMG I thought! Well it’s ok
if you thought as them too. Both suggestions are not entirely untrue. After I
realised the fact that I’m a sort of history geek and how could I expect
everyone to care to know, I was less surprised and filled them in. Now let me briefly
fill you in.
The
original “Keep Calm” poster (pictured above) was in fact a poster released by
the British government, commission by the Ministry of Information, during the
start of the Second World War in 1939. The idea was to lift the morale of the
British public in the event of a large scale air attack or occupation, which at
that time seemed fairly inevitable. This poster was preceded by the two others (pictured
below alongside the “Keep Calm and Carry On”):
In
2000, bookshop owners Stuart Manley and his wife Mary of Barter Books Ltd in Alnwick, Northumberland, stumbled across a copy of
the poster. They came across it in a pile of used books purchased at an auction,
liked it and framed it one their wall. Reprints were made due to popular
requests and by 2009 they’d sold over 40000 copies. The year 2009 was also the
year where global economic crisis had spread across, and the renewed relevance
of this poster was reinstated to fit with the current age. Nowadays Barter Books Ltd are no longer the sole source of
merchandise.
This
whole idea today is a popular meme. A
few of the many examples include Stereophonics,
a Welsh rock band releasing their seventh album on November 2009 titled “Keep Calm and Carry On”. Threadless the noted T-shirt company
sell a variety of plays on the phrase. Several websites also collect the many
variations/spoofs created, with Tumblr and many other popular social networking
sites dedicated to the same. Not to mention a New York Times feature.
Here’s my version J
Lil Sis x
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