Obituary

Keep Calm and Carry On was a 1939 British wartime poster that spent seventy years in obscurity until a bookshop rediscovered it in 2000 and the internet rediscovered it again in 2009. Within three years it had spawned a thousand permutations: Keep Calm and Eat Cake, Keep Calm and Panic, Keep Calm and Carry On Even Though Everything Is on Fire. It died in 2013, the year the original poster sold for £31,000 at auction and the joke reached its saturation point — the moment a meme gets a museum price tag, it has become a relic. It was the last meme to be fully dead before it was fully famous.

Born

2009

Died

2013

Cause of death

Died of being everywhere at once

Last sighting

An auction house, London, 2013

Resting place

Section C, Row 1

Category

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