Tag Archives: Britain

The Real Story Behind “Keep Calm and Carry On”

Keep Calm and Carry On.  It’s on everything–posters, mousepads, coffee mugs, sorority mixer shirts, campaign posters, Target ads.  The original poster was British war propaganda:

keep-calm-and-carry-on-original

Once this meme took off, we saw it reversed:

calm panic

Merged with other memes:

calm grumpy cat

Turned into bad puns:

calm carrie

calm kansas

And used to make fun of the Cubs:

calm cubs

The Star Wars geeks got hold of it:

calm yoda

And the “Big Bang” theorists:

calm kitty

And the people who hate Christmas trees?:

calm christmas

Okaaaaaaay.

Until we all agreed that it was kind of DONE: (dead horse)

calm dead horse

Have you ever heard the story behind the original poster?  We associate it now with Britain in WWII, standing against the Nazi onlslaught–but this poster was never circulated to the people of England.  It was a secret weapon, only to be deployed in the event of utmost distress.  Watch this video to learn the true story behind the lost poster and  the couple who rescued it from the forgetfulness of time.

Keep Calm and Carry On from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.