Keep Calm and Fuck Off « Tetherd Cow Ahead

Sometimes some things just annoy the crap out of me. What is it with the daft ‘Keep Calm and [Insert Any Lame Thing Here]’ plague that stuck its head above the ramparts some years ago now and is STILL lumbering across the memetic landscape like a zombie hopped up on qualudes? Why the hell do people think this is still cool/funny/witty/whatever? In fact, why did they EVER think so?

You will no doubt have read of the Amazon ‘Keep Calm’ debacle in recent weeks, where an apparently random ‘Keep Calm’ generator designed by t-shirt vendor Solid Gold Bomb created almost unbelievably offensive slogans that actually appeared for sale in the Solid Gold Bomb Amazon shop. The mechanics of what happened have been thoroughly examined elsewhere so I won’t go into it here, other than to add the admonishment that you play with random processes at your peril.

The extreme unpleasantness of the affair notwithstanding, it seems to me that the greater crime has been left unexamined: why the fuck is anybody still allowed to sell anything with ‘Keep Calm and [Whatever]’ emblazoned upon it anyway?

As a meme it started with little value in the first place and proceeded from there on a downhill trek to banal in about the time it takes for a bunch of comedy writers to roundtable and discard a crummy routine (usually about 38 seconds, in my experience). It is a blight upon humanity and people caught perpetuating it (except in the course of exposing its lameness to the world, it goes without saying) should be incarcerated for long periods of time. No, fuck it – let’s bring back drawing and quartering.

Let’s see ’em keep calm while horses tear their limbs off.

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* I mean, seriously. WHAT. THE. FUCK?

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8 Responses to “ Keep Calm and Fuck Off ”

Dewi Morgan says:

May 1, 2013 at 3:57 pm

I love (not merely like, but actually love, adore, and want to hug the creator of even if they are dead) the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster.

I think it sums up Blitz-era British stoicism perfectly. The contrast between the current “If You See It, Report It” security-posters begging us to panic, could not be more stark.

However, I can remember seeing no derivatives that I have liked. Every one I have seen has lessened and cheapened that original intent, ignoring it rather than building upon it.

anaglyph says:

May 1, 2013 at 4:10 pm

Don’t get me wrong – the original is great. Even the original on a t-shirt is great. Even as a meme, the original on a t-shirt is great.

It’s the lame ‘append-something-you-think-is-just-HILARIOUS’ that I hate.
- Dewi Morgan says:
  
  May 2, 2013 at 4:04 am
  
  I couldn’t agree more. Thing is, I can’t even think of one myself that would work.
  
  “Keep calm and Mayonnaise will KILL LICE!”
  
  “Keep calm and BUY PRODUCT!”
  
  “Keep calm and try to ignore the spider in your hair. Maaan, that’s a big one.”
  
  But remixing that improve on the original must be possible. To make an even more powerful statement of stoicism. But I think that it would take a heck of a situation to give it relevance.
  
  Say if, at the next paralympics, there was a runner in prosthetics from Boston, with a shirt “Keep calm and run on”: THAT would be meaningful.
  - anaglyph says:
    
    May 2, 2013 at 7:43 am
    
    Actually, the spider one got me to laugh, and that’s the first time the damn thing has had any success at all in my brain.
    
    As for the reinstatement of the actual stoicism in the original, I don’t even think your Boston runner suggestion works. It has a certain cachet, sure, but it’s still fairly soggy. But that could simply be because the thing is so worn out that it would just demean the bearer.
    
    VT points out one she thinks works – a knitting circle she subscribes to has a version that says ‘Keep Calm and Carry Yarn’. And I agree that it’s clever, at least. As a riposte it works, but it’s still dragged down by the banality of the meme at large.