Keep Calm and Carry This Overused Phrase to the Grave

Keep Calm and Please Do This.
Photo Via Somethingaweek.wordpress.com

Misinterpretations aren’t new to the American public; we’ve successfully warped the psychological term “antisocial” into literally meaning anti-social (horribly incorrect) and the concept that we only use 10% of our brain (although I must admit, to come up with that lie, I’d say that person did).

This particular catchphrase and mass marketing product for 13-year old girls has bothered me in the last few years due to its extreme political and social incorrectness and its fad-like appeal that has resulted from massive Tumblr reblogging and Pinterest pinning.  Because I don’t foresee any massive air attacks occurring in the near future, I believe it’s time for teenage America to avoid “Keep[ing] Calm” because this is not 1939, this is not Britain, and King George VI does not appreciate his crown being placed upon the head of Ke$ha.

Keep Calm and Admire Awful Human Beings.
Photo Via Keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

The term “Keep Calm and Carry On” was first engineered during the Second World War by the Ministry of Information to design “morale boosting posters” to elicit calamity during the testing times in the British Isles.

Although there were two catch phrases used before “Keep Calm” (“Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom is in Peril”), the popular Americanized phrase was made solely for the purpose of issuing it in the event of an invasion upon Britain by Germany; however, it never happened.

As a result, most of the posters were destroyed and reduced to pulp at the end of the war in 1945. Sixty years later, however, a Barter Books bookseller came across a copy from an auction he attended, later resulting in the rest of the found posters to be kept and used by the National Archives and the Imperial War Museum in London, the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, and the Keep Calm and Carry On website.

Keep Calm and Marry Rich.
Photo Via Lovethispic.com

So let’s dissect this cultural phenomenon that has spread its way onto t-shirts and coffee mugs, shall we?

“Keep Calm and Love One Direction” is probably a mind-altering showstopper in the middle school lunchroom and “Keep Calm and Gangnam Style” may not be an embarrassment to your closet (or at least you can tell yourself that), but please, for the love of “Keep Calm and Pray to God,” stop marketing yourself as a slab of meat with the political acknowledgment of a 12-year old. These phrases don’t even correspond to the political and social statement provided with it, and they definitely don’t correspond to eating cupcakes or watching “Gossip Girl.”

With its excessive usage appearing on blogging websites such as Tumblr and Pinterest, this pop cultural plague has infected the mass American teen mind and has created an internet viral storm, incurable even with internet access to the original meaning of this war slogan.

Now is not the time to “Keep Calm and Call Batman,” it is time to burn this overused phrase to the ground like the rest of the posters eliminated after 1945. No, I refuse to “Keep Calm and Paint My Nails” or “Keep Calm and Sparkle On,” because I am a fully functioning human being who is able to paint her own nails when she wants and has the right to sparkle on whenever she pleases.

So please pop culture, stop telling me to “Keep Calm” and watch “Doctor Who,” stay classy, bake a cake, or go to Paris. It’s psychologically proven that people become angrier when you tell them to calm down (especially when they’re already calm to begin with), so perhaps it’s time for us to carry this phrase to the grave so I can carve its headstone myself.