Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Scientists confirm impending exhaustion of words available for "Keep Calm and.." meme.

The Greetings Card/T-Shirt/Mousemat/Mug/Coaster/Keyring industry was thrown into disarray over the Christmas period as Scientists at the Weissman School of Arts & Sciences, NY, confirmed worries first voiced back in early November by experts at the Clinton Cards Research Centre - namely that it is estimated that the human race is only approximately 8 weeks away from having used every possible combination of words on the familiar "Keep Calm and" motif.

"The original 'Keep calm and carry on' motif was a propaganda poster produced by the Ministry of Information within the British Government in 1939", explained Professor Hall-Oates, head of Linguistic and Meme studies, "and was intended to raise the morale of the British public in the event of a Nazi invasion of the UK."

"This total of 1 variant existed in relative obscurity for the next 71 years until 2010, where suddenly every second person in the world decided to make their own. Every fucking second person."

"This level was far from sustainable," continued Hall-Oates, "and it was way back in July of 2012 that Hallmark Staff noted a distinct rise in the level of writers block when attempting to generate a new 'Keep Calm and Carry on' variant. It was then they commissioned the studies, and we've been researching it ever since."

"What started as quite a novel concept has been muddied by desperate individuals mining some absolutely desperate shite. I mean, just look at some of these. 'Keep calm and watch Man United win', 'Keep calm and learn to fly'. Absolutely pathetic. I'd rather be stabbed in the eye with a spear of frozen piss than try to make sense of some of these."

"It's even a fucking album, for fucks sake", said
Hall-Oates, "It's only a matter of time before somebody has
it stencilled on a coffin."
"Furthermore, but somewhat luckily, due to the number of 'Keep calm and..' generators available on the internet making the creation of them a simple act taking several seconds, a great many individuals have inadvertently eased the dearth of words available by misspelling existing ones. And then blaming it on their dyslexia. Like every fucker does who spells words wrong on the internet."

"All is not lost though", he concluded, "Despite the fact that natural resources have dwindled, it might be possible to prolong their life by using slightly different fonts, different icons than the current crown and perhaps different background colours. And then every variant can continue to be as fucking hilarious and original as all the ones that have been flooding Facebook for the past six months."

A brief pause, and then a flurry of laughter from Hall-Oates and his colleagues.

"I'm sorry, I can't say that with a straight face."

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