This is a variation of the Keep Calm and Carry On meme, which originated from a British WWII propaganda poster. The "Keep Calm" meme is incredibly popular online and has even leaked into the "real world." Information required to "get it" includes the running joke that when the Bluth siblings were children, their father taught them elaborate lessons that included a man with a missing arm. The children did something their father, George, didn't like (not leaving a note when they used the last of the milk) and the situation escalated to the point where this man lost his (fake) arm gruesomely as a result of the childrens' behavior.
Creating the image makes a connection between everyday life and the show. The creator pulled together the old poster, the cultural craze surrounding the poster, and an aspect of the show.
This is one of many TV-show memes based on Texts from Last Night, popular on Tumblr. Users take texts featured on TFLN and overlay them on stills of TV shows for humorous effect.
To "get" this, users must know that Ann, the girl pictured, is devoutly Christian and making her first prank call at the urging of her boyfriend. The included text describes a parallel situation of a Christian person misbehaving. The maker had to see the text on TFLN and remember this particular moment in the show and connect the two in his mind, then take the time to search out this still and create the image. It demonstrates the amount of space the maker's mind has dedicated to Arrested Development and the appreciation for the show.
Professional illustrator Kyle Hilton creates paper dolls of characters from TV shows and movies on his Tumblr and has done a whole series of Arrested Development characters. While the artist is a professional, he didn't originally create the paper dolls for profit. They have certainly helped him gain notoriety (and are now being sold). Because the artist is a professional illustrator, he almost certainly uses Adobe Illustrator and other professional-level tools.
As this is part of a series, the artist has used a template to a certain degree. The artist also selected specific aspects of this character to represent the character as a whole in this particular image.
4 comments:
Megan, you must have researched each of your memes, or you are very familiar with memes to know the history so completely. I am really new to them and didn't think to look mine up. Nor did I take the time. I never would have understood your first meme or thought it was funny without your explanation, now it is funny.
Paper dolls fan art, who knew. I love it. I remember playing with paper dolls. I don't remember if I saved them. Probably not, they had tears in them. Anyways.... I didn't know that they were still so popular, though I am not surprised that they are recognizable characters from TV.
Shirley, I spend waaaaay to much time on the internet (I have no life), so I know a little about memes. This blog post was calling my name from the time I saw it on the list at the beginning of the semester. I knew I was gonna do Arrested Development for my project and I set up a new Tumblr to collect things in anticipation of this post. I am a loser.
I'm glad you were able to get them and see the humor.
As for the paper dolls, I've only ever seen this guy do it, but he's done so many for such a variety of shows that maybe he'll popularize them.
I spend almost no time on the internet, so I know little. I still can't get around Facebook yet. Crazy huh? Sounds like there are sites that make some of these things easy for those that know what to look for.
I find it interesting that the memes you posted needed a lot more context than the rest of ours. Sure, some of ours needed a little explanation of the meme STYLE, but not so much for the content itself. Yours, however, wouldn't be understood at all without quite a bit of background about the show. I'm not saying that's a bad thing... just interesting!
In a way, it is like the show itself. If you were to start watching the show several episodes in, you wouldn't get it. That's what makes the show funny--knowing the story and watching it develop through each episode. There are many inside jokes that an outsider simply won't understand. I have always felt like Arrested Development fans are VERY aware of this fact and take some pride in it! Almost like their own little secret. (I write as one who never got into the show)
Anyway, memes are typically meant to be kinda snarky and sarcastic anyway, and it seems like the Arrested Development memes lay on an extra layer of it!
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