Also contained in this bundle of signifiers was the enduring pretension of an extremely rich (if shoddy and dilapidated) country, the sadomasochistic Toryism imposed by the coalition government of 2010–15, and its presentation of austerity in a manner so brutal and moralistic that it almost seemed to luxuriate in its own parsimony. How had this happened? What was it that made the image so popular? How did it manage to grow from a minor English middle-class cult object into an international brand, and what exactly was meant by “carry on”? My assumption had been that the combination of message and design were inextricably tied up with a plethora of English obsessions, from the “blitz spirit”, through to the cults of the BBC, the NHS and the 1945 postwar consensus. As a logo, it was nearly as recognisable as Coca-Cola or Apple. As an image, it was now up there alongside Rosie the Riveter, the muscular female munitions worker in the US second world war propaganda image as easily identifiable as the headscarved Lily Brik bellowing “BOOKS!” on Rodchenko’s famous poster. It felt like confirmation that the image had entered the pantheon of truly global design “icons”. I was going into the flagship Warsaw branch of the Polish department store Empik and there, just past the revolving doors, was a collection of notebooks, mouse pads, diaries and the like, featuring a familiar English sans serif font, white on red, topped with the crown, in English: I can pinpoint the precise moment at which I realised that what had seemed a typically, somewhat insufferably, English phenomenon had gone completely and inescapably global. It is the ruling emblem of an era that is increasingly defined by austerity nostalgia. And, unlike most memes, it has been astonishingly enduring, a canvas on to which practically anything can be projected while retaining a sense of ironic reassurance. Around eight years after it started to appear, it has become quite possibly the most successful meme in history. Then there were those related to Islamic State: “Keep Calm and Fight Isis” on the standard red background with the crown above and “Keep Calm and Support Isis” on a black background, with the crown replaced by the Isis logo. Some were related to the floods – a flagrantly opportunistic Liberal Democrat poster, with “Keep Calm and Survive Floods”, and the somewhat more mordant “Keep Calm and Make a Photo of Floods”. In the last few days I’ve seen it twice as a poster advertising a pub’s New Year’s Eve party, several times in souvenir shops, in a photograph accompanying a Guardian article on the imminent doctors’ strike (“Keep Calm and Save the NHS”) and as the subject of too many internet memes to count. As recently as December 2015, new parodies are being collected and created on /mu/ and /v/.To get some sense of just what a monster it has become, try counting the number of times in a week you see some permutation of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster. In early 2015, more parody images began to appear on 4chan, which were collected in a blog post on the blog Morbo's World on May 15th, 2015. On June 12th, 2012, the user enfdude submitted the image to the subreddit /r/4chan, inquiring as to what the deep web was the post received 252 points (79% upvoted) and 128 comments. The image has received over 150,000 views on Imgur, and an associated Reddit post in the subreddit /r/askreddit received 161 points (74% upvoted). In the visible part of the iceberg are the logos for many popular websites which are easily accessible via Google or URL, while below the waterline were different types of websites that were only accessible by those who can access the deep web. The earliest known example of the iceberg metaphor being used as a parody image was uploaded to Imgur on May 31st, 2011, although it probably dates from sometime earlier than that. Hall created the "Cultural Iceberg Model" as a way to discuss cultural differences. Sigmund Freud used an iceberg metaphor to describe the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind, and another academic named Edward T. It is unknown where the iceberg metaphor originates from in general usage.
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